


Savages

by SerahSerah



Series: Where I may hang my heart [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adoribull - Freeform, Anal Sex, BDSM, Canon-Typical Violence, Complete, Crying, Developing Friendship, Developing Relationship, Dirty Talk, Don't Try This At Home, Electricity Play, Emotional Eating, Exhibitionism, Family Drama, Fluff, Grinding, Hand & Finger Kink, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Intrusive Thoughts, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Magical Restraint, Masturbation, Oral Fixation, Oral Sex, Praise Kink, Qunlat freeform, Qunlat wildly made up, Relationship Negotiation, Restraint, Safewords, Sappy Ending, Scent Kink, Sexual Tension, Size Difference, Strength Kink, Subspace, Teasing, Voice Kink, and emotional feeding, if that's a thing, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-03-15 16:45:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 54,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3454397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerahSerah/pseuds/SerahSerah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of two people who should have been enemies - and prove to be spectacularly bad at it.</p>
<p>Will contain mostly smut and some fluff, issues and general relationship ineptitude in spite of best intentions all around. Because falling in love is the easy part. Noticing you have fallen in love is harder. Knowing what to do about it is just too much to ask, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First encounters

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a longish sort of story about the Iron Bull and Dorian and their relationship.  
> Really though it will be a bunch of porn interspersed with my attempts at plot and character development.  
> It's a work in progress on an unsteady schedule, so we'll just have to see what they get up to together. :)  
> Also I want to thank you all for your very kind responses to this story. You have made an already fun activity that much more rewarding!  
> But if you still want to make me happy with a comment, a question and some feedback of any kind, join the campfire in the comments or hit me up on tikaon.tumblr.com.

The first thing the Iron Bull noticed about Dorian, even before his prettiness or the power of his magic, was that he was someone who had a true gift for performance.

It didn’t even matter if he was being watched or not, his fighting style was made for a stage. It was elegant and had a wonderful flow to it, but it was also intense and physical, far more than Bull had ever seen with a mage. The way Dorian moved when he cast his spells, how he swung his staff, how he dodged and evaded flowed from his core and involved his entire body in sweeping arcs and bows, in which no part of him ever stood still or did not share in the exertion of the fight. All of him was in perfect fluid motion while the air burned around him and he swung the bladed edge of his staff against the demons of the rift. It was beautiful to watch, but it was also clearly calculated to send a message. Here was a mage who could afford style over substance and flourish over concentration. Here was someone who could afford to treat a fight with you as a dance and an opportunity to show off, because anything you could throw at him would only ever take but a fraction of his power to counter. But still, when it was over and he turned to meet the Herald, Bull caught a glimpse of faint sweat on his brow and heard his slightly laboured breathing, belying his easy smile and swagger.

Dorian’s eyes flickered over to him and widened just the tiniest amount before quickly turning back around to Eleanne. “Fascinating! How does that work, exactly?” He asked her, gesturing between her hand and the spot in the air where the rift had been, laughing. “You don’t even know, do you?”

He was beautiful and deadly and deceptive. Bull recognised a flashy facade over a truly dangerous spirit anywhere, and this was exactly what he had tried to warn the boss against. Eleanne was a smart girl, Bull was certain, and as a noble she must be well acquainted with the lies to be found in friendliness and snarky humour, but it was still limited to southern and free marches courts. Any Tevinter noble would eat what the Orlesians called the Great Game for breakfast, both in matters of charm as in matters of deadliness. So when the Vint actually offered his help and the Herald had accepted, Bull knew he would have to keep his eye on him.

It sure was a good thing he was rather easy on it. All sleek lean muscle, immaculate shining hair and golden brown skin, smooth and perfect, and more of it on display than the sensible clothing sense of the south would have allowed for. Also there was no denying that there was something really delightful about the way the leather straps of his outfit moved over his bare shoulder.

 

*** 

 

Of all the surprises Dorian had encountered down south, a Qunari ally was not the most unexpected or even the most remarkable, but it definitely caught his eye first. Even though that may well have been due to the fact that he took up about twice as much space as anyone else around.

It had been a while since he had last seen one of them quite this close and he had all but forgotten about the sheer presence they exuded, easy as breathing. They were solid and powerful and they always had an aura of calm about them, as if nothing bad could ever really happen. This one did it too, despite the mistrust with which he watched Dorian, and also despite the fact that he was missing an eye and carried more scars than Dorian had ever seen on a single person. He was completely calm and unafraid. Before he even knew he was doing it, Dorian had taken a deep breath and calmed down a bit himself. It was uncanny.

Something seemed different about this one though, something he couldn’t put quite put his finger on, until he caught the faint twinkle in his eye when he warned the Herald not to trust him. The distrust was not the surprise and neither was the fact that he recognised Dorian’s attractiveness. But he made a joke about it, or at least attempted to, and he smiled when he said it, fixing Dorian with that piercing bright eye as if he could look right through him. Something tingled ever so slightly in Dorian’s gut and he shoved it down with annoyance, turning at last to the fabled herald of Andraste, who had just sealed the rift in the veil behind him with nothing more that a wave of her hand. Something that did in fact merit a little more interest than some Qunari brute, he chastised himself.

He had heard the Herald described before, of course, and he found that from the stories he had heard, there was already the aura of the mystical surrounding her, making her seem a lot larger than she actually was. Not that she was not impressive in her own way, and beautiful for that matter. But there was something small and childlike about her open friendliness, some impression of innocence in her untamed red curls and freckles, in stark contrast to the bored routine with which she wiped the blood off her sword. Behind her stood another warrior, a dark haired austere woman with a scarred face, who was contemplating him with open distrust. Compared to the almost humorous distrust of the Qunari and the open friendliness of the Herald he wondered who was actually the brains of the operation, or if the leader just so happened to also be the best actor.

Whatever her acting abilities might be though, in the following fight and impossible journey through time she certainly revealed herself as an accomplished fighter, as well as someone who was good to have around in a crisis. She kept her head well, considering the circumstances, and she could really move with her weapon. 

The cause was just and the company was truly one of a kind. This already promised to become very interesting, and uncomfortable, indeed.


	2. Long roads

It was not long into their first expedition together that the Iron Bull found that keeping an eye on the pretty Vint was a lot more fun than expected, and not just due to him being very pleasant to look at.

Bull quickly learned that he had made some misjudgments at the start of their acquaintance. For one, Dorian was not nearly as subtle as he thought he was. Back when Bull also still thought that he must be, he had naturally assumed that there were levels of ulterior motives far beyond what Dorian actually had. He had also assumed that all of Dorian’s masks were calculated and voluntary. Which was not to say that he was straightforward, or even predictable. It was just that when Bull got a reaction, he always immediately saw what Dorian was trying to hide it behind. Even if the reaction itself was deliciously inscrutable and unpredictable, the cover was always recognizable as such. Also prodding Dorian turned out to be amazingly entertaining, as was finding out about what things Dorian cared about on which layer of pretense and playacting.

Long roads were boring. As often as sudden and unlooked for fights tended to liven things up, Bull had always liked to occupy his mind with some kind of exercise or puzzle. It didn’t take long for him to notice that Dorian’s clothing was, in fact, completely nonsensical. So in between the interesting things happening Bull made it his mission to figure out exactly what clasp closed what and which strap went where. It was rather complicated, but Bull quickly realized that most of the various attachment actually didn’t do anything at all, and he was fairly certain that most of the buckles and clasps didn’t even open. 

“So, Dorian,” he said one day when they were just preparing to leave camp in the morning, “I’ve been wondering-”

“Have you now? Fascinating.” Dorian interrupted, sounding deliberately sarcastic.

Bull did not rise to the bait. “Yes. I have. About those straps and buckles of yours.”

Dorian looked himself up and down quickly in confusion before he remembered to glare at Bull again. “It’s clothing. I can see you are mostly unfamiliar with the finer points,” Dorian said, gesturing to Bull’s pants for some reason, “but you do seem to grasp the general idea.”

“But see, the ‘general idea’ is what you don’t seem to get. This?” He pointed to the large buckle that held his harness, “if I open this, the whole thing comes off. Whereas if I open that one,” he pointed to one of Dorian’s clasps at roughly the same spot, “I’m pretty sure absolutely nothing would happen. At all.”

Dorian paused for a second, looking down at Bulls finger that still lay against his shoulder, and blinked at it a few times, before looking back up at him. “The point of clothing is not to take it off as quickly as possible!” He blurted out before realizing his mistake and glaring. Dorian talking his way into a corner, deducing that he couldn’t talk his way out of it well enough and thus resorting to silent glaring was one of Bull’s favorite things. He lifted an eyebrow in glee.

“Oh, I could still get through that fast enough. With the right incentives…” he purred in his deepest register. Dorian’s expression did not change, but Bull clearly saw the slight shudder that ran up his spine. Interesting.

“I’m sure you could,” Dorian answered haughtily, “if someone were to let you get that close.”

Bull laughed and drew back again. “Mostly it’s a matter of people letting me get away again. But here comes the steep part,” he pointed up to where their path became a dried out little stream, leading up a rocky climb, “so you’d better hike up those skirts, mage boy!”

“I’m not wearing a skirt!” Dorian protested immediately and with such indignation that Bull couldn’t help laughing again. Dorian’s clothing was nothing but frippery masquerading as functionality, but it sure was important to him that both the illusion of functionality and the fashion statement behind it were respected. 

In a way his clothing mirrored the way he moved through the world, Bull mused. Dorian took great care to complain about everything. Cold, hot, wet, dry, anything nature did was worthy of unfavorable comment. But at the same time Dorian never lagged behind or slipped on wet stones or forgot to drink enough water. This was what he wanted, to be seen as someone highborn enough to be completely pampered and vain without being actually inept at anything. Bull wondered if that ever got exhausting, having so much control over the perception of others. Because in this particular case, Dorian cared enough to play his role well. 

‘One of these days we’ll find out about which buckle opens what in you, Vint,’ Bull thought to himself, still smiling.

 

After a few days of watching and wondering, Bull noticed that Dorian had taken to watching him back. It was true that the road was not very interesting compared to the first Qunari Dorian had probably ever been in close quarters with, but it had taken him a while to start staring. In the beginning all he had given were a few glares that varied between concerned and hostile, but now he had his eyes on him pretty much every time the Bull looked over at him. And even better, he was trying to be secretive about it. Bull considered pointing out that watching one of the Ben-Hassrath unnoticed was definitely beyond his abilities, but wisely decided to keep quiet about it. He just had to become more subtle in his own watchings. This gave him the opportunity to study the patterns of how Dorian watched him.

Bull had naturally assumed that Dorian’s reason for keeping an eye on him lay in his often, and loudly, professed mistrust. Indeed he barely let an opportunity slide by without attempting to illicit a hostile reaction, with comments clearly meant to make Bull defend the honor of his people, or something like that. Dorian asked, again and again with changing words, if the Iron Bull disapproved of him, and when no disapproval or hostility was forthcoming, he seemed genuinely thrown off balance by it, even more so than by the jokes and the flirting. 

Bull found himself intrigued. Some people saw him and thought they had figured him out. Some others watched him for a while and then thought they knew all there was to know. Dorian watched for a while and recognized that he was getting nowhere. The clever ones were also always the worst.

But that was not all there was to the watching. After a while it became quite clear that Dorian was developing something of a fixation, most likely without even noticing, which made the whole thing even more funny and also intriguing. Because now Bull noticed how Dorian, when he was too tired to control his every gesture, had taken to staring at his hands and forearms, or how he sometimes let his eyes wander over Bull’s horns, or how his eyes bored into the Bull’s back when he clearly thought no one was paying attention.

One evening they were all sitting around the camp fire. Bull was building a roasting spit for the ram they had shot and Dorian’s eyes were all but burning holes into him. It was his hands today, so every now and again he made a point of flexing them for his benefit. Wouldn’t do to deprive the boy, after all. 

After a while the spit was set up and the fire was burning, when Varric came out from between the trees, bearing more firewood. He took a long look around, from Eleanne who was leaning against a boulder and whittling at a stick in pointed distraction, to Dorian who was still watching Bull in oblivious distraction, to Bull himself. Then he burst out laughing.

“I could not make this shit up if I tried,” he wheezed, holding his sides, “hey Sparkler! Are you studying the mysteries of life by ways of Qunari physiology now? Let me know how it goes, yeah?”

“Hm?” Dorian mumbled, still deep in thought and still looking at Bull’s right hand. Varric was right, he did look as if he was seeking some kind of existential answer there. Bull raised it slowly and Dorian’s eyes followed for a few inches before he caught on. When he did she sat up straight, spluttering and looking around, apparently truly disoriented. “What?” he said defensively, “can’t a man have some time to his thoughts without ridicule for once?”

Eleanne threw a few wood chips at Varric. “Leave him alone,” she said, “it’s not his fault the Iron Bull tends to be there whenever he needs to stare off into space.” She was grinning as she said it and Dorian glared at her too and muttered something in Tevene, and she laughed. 

 

***

 

Nature was the enemy. There was no other way to say it. Corypheus might be evil and trying to end all the world, but at least he wasn’t wet, cold and he didn’t stretch on for miles on end. Dorian firmly believed that nature was definitely worse.

And that was just the marching bit. There were worse things, far worse. The fact that the privy consisted of a small shovel and a pat on the back was one. The fact that it was unsafe to ever get out of earshot of the group was another, not to mention that not a single person in that group had the common courtesy to be even slightly what they appeared. And then there was the fact of shared tents. On their first expedition, Eleanne had instantly just assumed that she was going to share with Sera and that Dorian would share with the Iron Bull. 

Dorian considered pointing out the obvious logical error there, but the Iron Bull had just burst out laughing, which lead Dorian to draw some disturbing conclusions about his perceptiveness. Or perhaps there was something else incredibly hilarious about it, but Dorian didn’t want to put to much thought into it. As it was, the arrangement seemed to stick, even when their party was no longer as neatly divided along gender one way and along orientation the other.

In any case, Bull had turned out to be a surprisingly pleasant person to share a tent with. He was fastidiously tidy, he didn’t roll about or fidget in his sleep and snored a lot less than Dorian liked to claim. That and he gave off enough warmth to serve better than a whole fireplace’s worth of hot rocks.

But still, Dorian had an image to maintain and complacency to ward off. It wouldn’t do for anyone to think Dorian had no complaints about his sleeping arrangements, after all. Also apparently Bull thought that no evening could go by without at least some form of bad joke, innuendo, or insult to his homeland, and Dorian had come to expect it.

“Say whatever it is you want to say, and have it over with,” Dorian had grouched that night, too tired to get all riled up about it. The food had been good and all he wanted was to curl up and sleep without further embarrassment. Also he hoped for some time alone to meditate on any image that was not the Bull’s hands for once. Admitting to himself that it was getting progressively worse was the first step of recovery, after all.

“Ah, nothing, nothing at all.” Bull said, still smirking .

“Good. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to retire. You can stay out here until I’m done changing.”

Bull spread his hands out in mock surrender. Dorian did not look. “Sure, Dorian, whatever you say. I’m not here to encroach upon your honor. Without you asking nicely, that is.” He got up from the fire and turned towards the trees. Then he very slowly and deliberately rolled his shoulders, causing the muscles in his back to all move and shift over each other, standing out all the clearer and shimmering gold over silver in the firelight. Thankfully he was not looking, but Dorian glared at him again for good measure and then retreated into the tent.

Once the tent flap closed behind him he sunk in on himself, groaning under his breath. He had too much pride yet left to actually touch himself through his clothes, but it was a near thing. They had been on the road for weeks now, which by itself was quite a long time to go without privacy, even without riding beside a half naked Qunari, without having to watch his strong, scarred hands wrapped around reigns, wrapped around his weapon, his shoulders and back always flexing and moving under sweat and dirt. Without having to hear that deep rumbling voice carry through Dorian’s bones, saying infuriating things, calling him pretty, calling him a boy, telling him he’d just have to ask nicely… Dorian suppressed the urge to curse and kick something, and instead just undressed quickly, ignoring his stirring body as best he could and rolled himself up in his blanket.

Sometime later the Bull quietly crept into the tent, now wearing nothing but his hideous pants, but Dorian was already half asleep, his mind drifting and wandering where he would never have left it when awake, but with the excuse of sleep he let the warmth of those thoughts slip through him sending shivers down his spine and along his ribs, making his cock twitch and swell.

He was warm, aroused and hard. He knew that falling asleep like that was all but asking for trouble and that he should at least try to take precautions against the dreams he felt tugging at his consciousness even now, exacerbated by Bulls slow breathing next to him. But it was pleasant too, to have this warmth course through him at the half formed pictures and ideas in his head. He didn’t even know what they were, exactly, what he wanted to happen, because he didn’t. He didn’t actually want anything. He was just wound up from a long journey where the lack of privacy had kept him from his own hand for too long, was all.

And so he just hoped he wouldn’t have a mess to deal with in the morning and drifted off to sleep with the warmth in his bones from the pictures and words in his mind and the warmth all around him from the massive Qunari body heating up the tent.

 

***

 

Bull lay awake for a while, just listening to Dorian breathe, enjoying the sound of his gentle snoring and the subtle scent of arousal still emanating from him. Bull smiled up at the tent canvas. He supposed he should be at least a little ashamed of himself, winding the boy up like that and then letting him believe that he had actually hidden it well, but Bull was a bad man, who enjoyed the effects of his efforts quite a lot. An aroused Dorian really was a sight to behold, the slight flush on his cheeks and the stutter in his breathing, the way his eyes dilated and how he tried to hide it behind scowling and angry glares was nothing short of delightful. 

The scent was wonderful too. It had taken Bull quite a while once to get used to the strange smell of humans, but he couldn’t deny that it had grown on him a lot. But Dorian’s smell was special in and of itself and it changed over the day. It changed when he bathed with his flowery soap, it changed when he waxed his mustache, when he oiled his hair, when he had been walking and fighting for many hours without the chance to do any of these things. Bull was learning to appreciate all of these, but it was still the faint and delicate scent of sex that got to him the most. Dorian smelled lovely.

Just as Bull was drifting off to his own sleep, Dorian’s breathing changed. His snoring stopped and he let out a low, breathy sigh. Bull knew at once that Dorian had woken up, but had just decided to ignore it when he heard him shuffling about and give another small sigh, this time with just the faintest hint of a low moan beneath it.

Bull kept still very carefully, deliberately using his training to keep his expression empty and his breathing deep and slow, and eased his eye open just far enough to peer through his eyelashes. The tent was very dark, but the faint orange glow from the fire outside filtered through the crack in the tent’s entrance, and he could make out Dorian’s form beside him. He was lying on his side, completely covered by his blanket, but he had two fingers of his left hand in his mouth right past the second knuckle, and his other hand was quite obviously shoved down between his legs. 

Bull felt like groaning himself. This was not fair. He could still smell that lovely scent and see Dorian’s hand move quickly and quietly under the blanket and he found himself completely enthralled. His beautiful face was scrunched up, his hair was hanging into his eyes in disarray so seldom seen otherwise, and his fingers were thrusting in between his lips, dragging them along with each push and shimmering wetly in the dim firelight.

Any movement now would give him away, which suddenly gave him a wicked, wicked idea. He closed his eye again and shuffled around a bit. Dorian’s movements instantly stopped, as did his breathing. Bull wriggled a bit more. He kept his eye completely closed, sure that he was being watched very carefully now. After a while he settled down again and the faint rustling resumed, quickly picking up its pace again.

And then Bull did it again. Instantly Dorian fell silent, but he let out a carefully controlled breath that sounded so forced and pained that Bull had to clamp down hard on his own lungs to stop himself from sighing. Or full out groaning, if he was being quite honest.

There was a little voice in the back of Bull’s mind telling him that this was wrong, that he should just leave the poor man in peace. Needing it that badly, that he actually woke up from it and couldn’t help himself, even if he had to stop ever so often because his sleeping neighbor stirred… Bull could relate to that and even pity it, but it was also incurably enticing. Just thinking about how Dorian must be feeling right now, how hot he must be burning, how close he must be and how the mounting pleasure of it would be coursing through every corner of his body by now had Bull’s whole body thrum in sympathetic arousal. 

But still it was unkind, so Bull stopped again, making himself go absolutely still. And indeed it didn’t take long. To Dorian’s credit, he came in almost complete silence, nothing to be heard except for a faint rustling shiver and a catch of breath, followed by a long slow exhale and relaxing of posture. 

Dorian’s breathing evened out again and Bull let himself relax when he was reasonably certain that he had fallen asleep again. He felt hot and feverish himself, and his cock was aching. He sighed internally and decided to leave it. Falling asleep hard was probably a fitting punishment for what he had just done. The image of Dorian coming with Bull’s fingers in his mouth coalesced in his mind just as he finally lost himself to sleep.

 


	3. Giants and Conquerors

The next morning Bull woke up very early. Quickly and quietly he packed his gear and got out of the tent while Dorian was still fast asleep. It was kinder to let him clean up a bit by himself and Bull was feeling magnanimous. Also he felt a strange stirring warmth in his chest when he thought about the night, something spreading and peaceful that made him want Dorian to not be embarrassed about it. He frowned to himself and wondered at it, but he had to admit an unfamiliar truth: For whatever reason, what happened had not been funny.

He shook his head at himself and sat down on a log to get his leg brace on. Slowly the camp started to stir, and one by one his companions emerged from their tents. Eleanne was first, followed shortly after by Varric. They were both in their underclothes and looked disheveled and disoriented.

“Grmpf. No credit to whoever invented mornings,” Varric groused, combing his hair back with his fingers and binding it. Eleanne stretched her back and rubbed at her eyes. “Mrng Bull,” she mumbled and pulled her armor out of her tent to get dressed standing up, while Varric disappeared again to dress inside. Bull got up and took the pot to the stream, filled it with water and brought it back, placing it on the remaining embers.

They were only just done spreading out their rations for a breakfast of tea, bread and cheese, when Dorian finally emerged, fully dressed and looking completely immaculate, bearing a rolled up towel and a bag. He looked at each one of them in turn and frowned.

“Please tell me I overslept long enough for all of you to have actually bathed before breakfast.”

Varric grinned up at him, “see that stream there, Sparkler? It comes right out of that mountain range and it’s colder than ice. But no one’s stopping you.”

Dorian threw his hands up in disgust. “You could have actually heated some! We have a fire right here. In fact I distinctly remember you doing exactly that in the last camp.”

“The last camp was special circumstances,” Eleanne said around a mouthful of bread, “we were all covered in blood. Today we just need to get the word out that the region is clear and then head back to Skyhold.”

Dorian made a face. “Fine. Barbarians, the whole lot of you. I’m getting clean, even if it freezes my toes off, thank you.” He continued muttering under his breath as he left camp to disappear behind a few rocks by the stream.

Later when they had all eaten and left the camp to the scouts the sun was already a good way up the sky. It was a pleasant, sunny day, everyone seemed in high spirits and something was wrong. It took Bull some time to put his finger on it, probably longer than it should have, but eventually he noticed that the strange absence he was noting was in fact of Dorian’s eyes on him. He was walking along side him as usual, currently laughing at some ridiculous anecdote of Varric’s, and he had not looked at Bull once.

Bull wondered at himself more than at that fact though. Why did he care? Surely the novelty was bound to wear off sooner or later, and there was absolutely no reason to even take note of it, let alone feel anything about it. Was he disappointed? It was hard to say.

But Dorian seemed to be ignoring him. Not in an obvious way, but with some actual subtlety this time. Subtle enough that Bull would have missed it if he hadn’t been watching for it. Subtle enough that Bull could not tell why he was doing it, though he had a guess or two at that. Dorian’s mind seemed to have taken him to a place he likely considered very forbidden indeed.

He was just mulling over possible remarks and tactics when there was shouting up ahead, followed by a deafening crash.

They were just approaching the mountain range and stood at the foot of a broad serpetine path that lead on ahead of them up the slope and around the cliff face in the distance. Three inquisition soldiers were running down the road, all out sprinting towards them and shouting. They stopped in their tracks and exchanged puzzled glances before they heard the crashing sound again.

Up ahead, over the rim of the sheer drop of the road, a huge, hairy arm reached over and a giant form pulled itself up and over the edge onto the road. It was humanoid, but of towering hight, and its monstrous face sported two bent tusks that reached down over its chest.

Eleanne drew her weapon and swung her shield off her back. With a loud, challenging whoop she leapt forward towards the giant. Bull laughed in surprise and excitement. He had fought giants before, and they were always well worth the effort and a lot of fun to boot.

As he ran towards it he heard Bianca creak and twang and felt the first bolt whiz past him to the right just as a searing heat passed him to his left. Both missiles hit the giant in the chest and it grunted and swatted at the air, giving both Bull and Eleanne an opening to dive below its reach and between its legs, hacking at its shins and knees as they went. With another roar, it spun on them just as more projectiles hit its back and side.

Fire was everywhere. The tails of its crude loincloth were already burning and fires sprouted from the ground everywhere it put its feet. The air stank of burned hair and skin. Bolts were hitting its exposed flesh, some of them exploding and bursting into flame on impact. The soldiers had rallied and come running back, joining in the chaos, striking its legs and dodging its swinging fists. 

The air was ringing with the beast’s roaring, Eleanne’s yelling and Bull’s own laughter over the singing bolts and the crackling fire. This was battle, blood and life.

It wasn’t long before the giant was tiring. It had landed several blows against its closest opponents, and Bull’s entire left side was numb and throbbing, but they were still standing and its fists were slowing down. Then in a last ditch effort and with surprising agility it spun around to a huge boulder by the wayside, and with terrific strength lifted it up over his head before hurling it down the road towards Dorian and Varric.

Bull couldn’t see what happened to them through the fire and smoke, but the giant’s sidestep had given him a vital opening and with a yell of triumph he swung his axe and embedded the blade deep into the creature’s knee. Its great bellow turned into a pained screech as it dropped to the ground, clutching the leg with both hands and nearly wrenching the axe out of Bull’s grip.

Eleanne leapt forward. It twisted its head around in an attempt to ward her off with its tusks, but it was to slow. With all her strength she first smashed her shield into its face and dropped it before gripping her short sword with both hands and sinking it deep into the thick neck. Its mouth fell open silently and its entire body convulsed once and then it finally lay still.

Bull let his axe’s head drop to the ground and leaned heavily on the handle, panting. It had been a very good fight, but he was feeling distinctly winded, both from the exertion and the blow to the ribs, but he could still take the time to look around for his companions. Eleanne had taken a substantial spray of blood to the face and was currently cursing and wiping herself down. The soldiers were sitting on the ground to rest but were apparently unharmed. And then there were Dorian and Varric, coming up towards them, covered in flaky rock dust. Varric was whistling contently and Dorian was scowling. 

Bull couldn’t help but laugh at the picture he made with the gray all over him, covering his hair and skin. Dorian turned to glare at him in particular.

Bull laughed again at his expression. “That’s quite the stink eye you’ve got going Dorian,” he said, which just earned him more indignant glaring. How Dorian managed to have different intensity settings for the same expression Bull would never know. Dorian was the only person he knew who could burn holes in people with his eyes literally as well as figuratively, and then manage to look even more cross.

He came up to Bull, shaking the dust out of his hair as he went and then pointed a very accusing finger at him. “You… you stand there, flexing your muscles and huffing like some beast of burden with no thought save conquest!” Dorian said, sounding somewhat out of breath himself.

Bull looked up in surprise to meet Dorian’s eyes. He was flushed from the fight under all the dust, and he was definitely angry, though there was something else in his expression too, something worried and confused. Conquest, was it? Bull could get behind that. With a slow smirk he let his axe stand on the ground and took two prowling steps towards Dorian, until he could look down at him. He shrank back a bit, but did not stop glaring. Only a slight flicker in his eyes betrayed that something was happening here. Bull’s smile widened.

“That’s right…” he purred, “these big, muscled hands could tear your robes off as you struggled, helpless in my grip. I’d pin you down, and as you gripped my horns, I. Would. Conquer. You.”

Dorian just froze in place, his face a comical mask of shock. Bull could see a barely suppressed shiver that started somewhere in his spine and spread out around his torso until he was almost shaking. His mouth stood slightly open and he seemed to have forgotten to breathe. Bull felt heat rise in his own gut with unexpected intensity. His blood was still singing from the fight and Dorian stood so tall and proud, defiant against Bull’s words and against the rebellion of his own body. Bull wanted to press his hand against that chest the next time it trembled like that. He wanted to know where it started and where it went. He wanted to really feel him shake.

“Uh… what?” Dorian asked dumbly, and Bull drew back, trying for a more neutral expression and innocently said, “oh, is this not where we’re going?”

That seemed to snap Dorian out of it somewhat and he found enough of his old outrage to point his finger at Bull again. “No! It was very much not!” Bull just continued to stare at him, studying his expression. That had sounded quite genuine, but the reaction before had been entirely different. He would need a new approach here.

Dorian held his stare for several seconds before Bull became aware that they were in fact being watched by everyone present, with expressions that ranged from confused to embarrassed to inordinately amused.

Eleanne pointedly cleared her throat. “Alright, let’s move out. Soldiers, alert the base camp about this fight and get road construction to clear out the carcass. Then send out the word that the foothills are safe for now.”

The soldiers saluted and started off down the road, though not without a side glance or two. Bull winked at them and Dorian glared.

As they made their way up the road Dorian walked last and Bull fell back a little to join him. The glare he was met with had lost much of its heat as exhaustion seemed to catch up with Dorian. But he still made an effort.

Bull lowered his voice to make sure that no one else head this time. “I’m just saying, Dorian, you carry around this picture of the Qunari in your mind. Like you see us as this forbidden, terrible thing. And you’re inclined to do the forbidden.”

Dorian looked ahead to check no one was listening. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he hissed under his breath.

Bull spread his hands out again and shrugged. “All I’m saying is, you ever want to explore that, my door’s always open.”

Dorian drew himself up and took a deep breath, spitting fire with his eyes again. “You are impossible, you-” He cut himself off with a growl Bull couldn’t help but find incredibly endearing. It was both funny and quite gratifying to see him lose his words. Then Dorian just swung his cloak around himself and stormed off ahead. Bull laughed after him and made a quiet bet with himself. Now the ball was in Dorian’s court, as they say, and whatever reaction he decided to go with. Bull very much looked forward to seeing the next move.

 

***

 

Later in the evening, when Dorian had finally managed to wash all the stone dust and ashes out of his hair, he decided to visit the pub. There would hopefully be some tolerable stew and almost tolerable alcohol. He did not think about the company.

When he entered, it became instantly clear that the chargers had taken the opportunity, or the excuse, of their chief’s return to turn the evening and venue into a charger party. The Bull himself was sitting in his usual chair against the wall and what seemed to be most of his troupe’s inner circle was sitting around him. Dorian went to the bar first and got a bowl of stew and a mug of what he was told to drink because it was the finest Fereldan ale there was. He was not in the mood for that argument again. He took both and carried them over to a table near the group.

Sitting next to Bull was a very young looking man that Dorian had been introduced to once on the grounds that they were both from Tevinter and thus must have an incredible amount of things in common. They had disagreed, but Dorian still liked him well enough. Sober, that is. Drunk he was rather obnoxious. 

And sure enough, as soon as Dorian came into earshot, Krem raised his mug to him and shouted loud enough for the whole tavern to hear. “Well look at that, if it isn’t magister Pavus, honouring us with his presence!”

Dorian frowned at him. “I’m not a magister. As well you know, soporati.”

Krem just laughed and winked. “Suuure you aren’t.”

The dwarf of the group, Dorian never could remember his name, leaned over and winked at Dorian in a very drunk and conspiratorial manner. “So you’re not a magister in the same way Dalish isn’t a mage, right?” 

“What? No!” Dorian protested, “magister Pavus is my father. It’s not a difficult concept! I will never know why southerners can never grasp it.”

“Bull is hardly a southerner,” Krem said, gesturing to his chief, who was watching the entire exchange with growing amusement. Bull lent over and stage whispered “and I grasp the concept well enough. Firmly too, I might add.” Krem laughed.

“Ugh.” Dorian gave up. He probably should have given up from the start, but well. One of these days he would have explained this to every forsaken soul south of the waking sea.

But still he sat with them to drink his ale, or at least he sat at the table next to them. The first few sips had been dreadfully bitter, but as he continued drinking he found that he could taste out other things as well, which turned out to have a quite lovely combination with the bitterness and the sting of the alcohol. He would say that he could get used to this, but by the second pint it was quite clear that he already had.

To the end of his second pint though Dorian felt it steadily going to his head. He didn’t start singing or swaying or anything indelicate like that, but he noticed that his thoughts would no longer obey him. He had kept such a tight hold on them all the way back to Skyhold. Though considering that it took no more than two pints of rather weak beer to have that control shot to the wind again he was now rather unfavorably disposed toward his own mental discipline.

Or no, that wasn’t right. His mental discipline was amazing. He knew that, as it was clearly evidenced by his continued existence. What he was bad at was fighting thoughts he wanted, and knew he wanted. Thoughts he knew he shouldn’t want, without always remembering why. Thoughts of conquerors. An invader to come in and throw him down and in doing so releasing him from the need to be this alert all the damn time, this guarded and this controlled. Because if he fought and lost, losing could hardly be considered his fault, right?

But that wasn’t all there was to it. That by itself would have been too simple, a temptation easy to resist. It was just a silly fixation, after all, and one easily explained. All his life he had heard about the Qunari, how beastly and terrible they were, how savage. It had always intrigued him to some degree, this idea of an uncontrollable beast of a man, barely held together by the constraints of a code, but underneath all consuming passion and carnal aggression paired with overpowering strength. A boy’s fantasy, nothing more. 

But Dorian was a boy no longer. He was a man now, alone, a long way from home in a foreign land with very few friends. The people he met in the south were rarely friendly to him, and even those that were most friendly, like Eleanne and Varric and Cole, struggled to understand some of the most basic things about him. Not that he did not appreciate the effort, but the explanations were hard and tiring, and he couldn’t always do it. But apart from the members of the inner circle no one ever even tried to understand. Damn southerners with their appalling manners, weather, alcohol and customs.

And then there was the Iron Bull. Also a stranger, in more ways than Dorian himself. One Qunari savage, with his overwhelming presence and strength, his utterly distracting body, his awful jokes. But there was also no denying his incomprehensible friendliness, the times his jokes showed insight he should never have had by rights, and his thoughtful eye that saw so much, far too much.

Dorian wanted to be angry at him. Angry at his indelicate proposition, angry at his presumption, angry for putting these images in his head. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t deny that the images had been there, before Bull had ever spoken of them, that night he had woken up and given in. 

He had been weak then, groggy with sleep and so turned on he couldn’t even berate himself. And he knew he was on the same path right now. He wasn’t really all that drunk, but he was tipsy, tired and frustrated, and he could feel the want coursing through his entire body stronger than the alcohol.

He needed. He needed it more than he could ever remember needing something for his body. He had never been this hungry, this tired, this parched. And then the Bull had gone and just  offered , as if there was nothing more to it than that. On the way home he had managed to ignore him well enough, but the only way he could do that was by ignoring himself. Ignoring his own body and ignoring his strangely achy heart. 

He barely took notice of the tavern around him anymore, sitting half slumped against the wall and glaring into his mug. He became aware that someone was bound to pester him if he didn’t get back to his appearances, so he drew himself up again just in time to look straight into Bull’s eye. Dark and dilated, fixed on him and smiling with just the barest hint of teeth, a snarl and a challenge and an invitation only just below the surface, a danger and the promise of obliteration. Conquest.

And then, slowly, fixing Dorian in place with his gaze, the Iron Bull raised two fingers of his left hand to his own lips.

The resulting jolt of heat had Dorian nearly doubling over in his seat as his blood thundered in his ears and his cock throbbed so hard that for a single mortifying second he thought he was going to come.

And he knew that the Bull had seen it. Around them, the chargers started singing. Dorian kept himself from shaking with some effort, and he searched around in his mind for the voice that should be railing at him just about now, but all he could think was ‘I’m done for’. He couldn’t even argue anymore.

So he jerked his head in the direction of Bull’s room and then, with a dramatic spin that conveniently swirled his cloak around him, he got out of his chair and stormed out of the tavern.

 

 


	4. This presence of yours against my presence of mind

The Iron Bull did not waste any time. Dorian’s invitation had been as spectacular as it had been clear, even though Bull still found it rather funny that he had been invited to his own quarters apparently. But he couldn’t fault the boy, it was a lot closer and Dorian had not looked like he would make it very far. It had been such a simple thing in the end that made him crumple up on himself like a dried leaf. Oh the things he could do to someone who reacted so strongly to a mere gesture. He would take the body of that poor, deprived boy and wring out his mind with pleasure until all he could remember was the Bull’s name and the word ‘please’.

Around him, the chargers were still singing but pointedly not looking his way anymore. So much for any subtlety Dorian might have wanted then. To be fair though, he had actually made a rather extravagant exit, while the Bull just got up and left without all the blushing and obvious cloak twirling. His baggy pants hid him well enough and if anyone really wanted to look that closely it was hardly his problem.

The quarters he had claimed for himself lay in the small wooden extension building between the pub and the outer battlements. It must have been a servant’s quarter of some kind once and it still had a hole in the ceiling, but with the bed Bull had dragged in and its very own fireplace it served him perfectly well.

As soon as he put his hand on the doorknob he knew he had come here second. Dorian was standing inside already, frowning up at the skylight. He had taken off his cloak and was wearing his usual collection of straps and buckles and looked like he had caught a hold himself again, somewhat.

“I really hate your room,” he said and turned around to the Bull. He still looked rather red across the cheeks and his hand and voice trembled ever so slightly as he gestured to encompass his surroundings. Bull put on his best predatory smile. “Do you now,” he said and took a step closer.

To his credit, Dorian stood his ground. “You have a hole in the roof!” he pointing out, “you know you can get requisitions to fix that!” But then he waved it off in an airy manner that seemed decidedly rehearsed. “No matter, it’s not like I intended to come here.”

Bull had taken a step closer as he spoke and he almost lost his breath while talking. Bull could also see the slight tremor in his chest again and he was clenching against it, trying so hard for nonchalance it made Bull’s own chest contract with something like pity. It was also really hot to see him so flustered and still trying for plausible deniability in the face of his own obvious arousal. Bull felt the warmth slowly run through his gut and his cock twitched, filling again slowly from where it had flagged on the way up. His grin widened then and he took another handful of steps forward while Dorian visibly struggled to keep his legs from moving him back.

“So I gather I got to you, huh?” Bull asked, somewhat rhetorically.

That seemed to pull Dorian out of his daze a little, which made him take up the glaring again, as well as the accusing finger. “You tactless lummox, you were watching me!” he said, jabbing it forward, nearly close enough to touch.

Bull just spread his hands again, the very picture of innocence. “You were gorgeous. How could I not?”

Dorian almost growled and took a step towards him. “And then you went and you… you… you and your talk of hands and conquering, you savage!” He was standing very close now, but his raised hand stopped just short of Bull’s chest, like it was trying to reach out and touch but he wouldn’t let it.

“Shocked you, did I?” Bull asked casually, not making a move to help Dorian’s predicament.

“Hah!” Dorian exclaimed, “I’m not some whimpering innocent you can shock with such imagery!” His voice was cracking and he seemed to be well aware, barely hiding it under his attempt at bluster.

Bull smiled, deliberate and slow. “You want me to find something better to shock you with?”

Dorian took a deep breath, before continuing in his best attempt at a tone both humorous and arrogant, “I’ll have you know that my people invented depravity, carnal or otherwise! Anything you ever thought of doing, we thought of it first. I have done things you wouldn’t even believe!” By the end of his little rant, Dorian was nearly panting and Bull watched that tremor again that he was starting to absolutely adore. Of all the possible arousal tells people had, shaking had always been his favorite and Dorian’s proud facade made a wonderful contrast for it.

“Is that a challenge?” Bull asked, “that sure sounded like a challenge.” What he didn’t say was that it also sounded like Dorian was nervous and out of his depth. Bull needed to move this along before Dorian completely lost his footing and his confidence and with them the ability to make the decision with his wits still about him.

“You know me. I’m always happy to broaden my cultural horizons,” he said, “how about I show you what I do and you show me what your people do, and we’ll compare notes.”

Dorian drew himself up, threw on his best haughty glare and used his most dismissive hand wave. “Do your worst, Qunari!”

Bull laughed. That he could work with. It would take some trial and error to find out what Dorian’s idea of Bull’s worst was, but that was also part of the fun. Because when Dorian said ‘worst’, Bull did not doubt that he was asking for more than most who had said that to him. But still, there had to be precautions.

He put both hands on Dorian’s shoulders, resting them there lightly and looked him in the eyes. “How much did you drink?” He asked.

Dorian was caught completely by surprise. “What? Why? Two pints, just about? You never even gave me the chance-”

“Good. You are familiar with the concept of a watchword?” Bull still held Dorian’s gaze, but leaned down towards him and slowly moved his hands down his arms until his palms lay lightly against Dorian’s forearms that now hung loosely by his sides.

“Of course,” Dorian said, too focused on Bull’s face coming closer to register what his hands were doing, “like I said, my people practically invented-”

“Katoh. Say it.” Bull interjected. There had been enough ranting for today.

“Katoh.” Dorian kept his voice from shaking with visible effort, but Bull could still feel the tremor of his entire body in his arms. His body was so warm and inviting, the bare patches of his skin shimmering and smooth, and Dorian’s hair smelled of lavender. Bull loved lavender.

“Good,” he said at last, “if you happen to have your mouth full, hit or kick me three times, like tapping out. You use it, I stop. No questions, no judgment. Got it?”

“Yes, yes, I do understand the basics of ‘it’. Now will you get on with ‘it’ or talk until we both grow roots?”

“Yes. I believe I have a promise to keep, don’t I?”

Without warning and with a single quick movement he closed his grip on both of Dorian’s wrists, and took another step forward, forcing Dorian back against the wall. Then he lifted his arms up over his head held them together with his right. Dorian gasped in surprise and for a moment he was too startled to do anything. Bull took the chance of savoring the way Dorian’s body went slack in his grip and how enticingly his eyes fell half shut his mouth opened on reflex. Oh that mouth, those pretty shiny lips immaculately framed… Bull was going to wreck it in every way it was begging for by opening for him like that.

He raised his free left hand to Dorian’s face and with a wicked, rumbling laugh he ran his two intact fingers over Dorian’s smooth, soft lips.

 

***

 

Dorian was losing. He had come here with the plan to at least put up a show of a fight, but here he was now, pinned to a wall and lifted to his toes, the sensation of being held so firmly, the strength required to do so with only one hand a thought and an image that was thundering around his mind and pumping his blood, while standing face to chest with the creature he had all but asked to conquer him, to come and take him. His arousal was like physical presence gripping every part of him, his bones, his heart, his cock, he could feel his blood and desire pound and throb everywhere. He was aware that he had closed his eyes, but he couldn’t remember how to open them anymore.

And then the Bull put two fingers against his lips. They felt rough and scarred and so incredibly big. Dorian wanted to taste them, feel them slide between his lips, see how far they would go, show Bull how far he could take other things maybe, so he opened his mouth wide and strained forward towards them. He knew he must look shameless, but he could not care anymore. If he didn’t get something inside his mouth soon he just might scream.

But instead the fingers drew back and he heard Bull still laughing. And then, just when he thought he was going to lose it, Bull kissed him.

There was nothing gentle or slow in the kiss. This was an invasion. Bull’s lips were hard and strong like the rest of him as they closed over Dorian’s, and he could hardly gather himself enough to kiss back before Bull’s tongue licked into his mouth, direct and overwhelming and filthy, dragging around his lips and then finally tangling with his own tongue as Dorian got himself to move it. He kissed back as well as he could, but Bull was giving no quarter. He kissed with everything, tongue and lips and teeth and Dorian felt like he had never been kissed before. It was amazing and wet and difficult and Dorian suspected he might actually come from it alone given enough time. He could already feel the beginning of it rising at the base of his cock.

Before he could worry about that too much though Bull drew back again and hummed that deep tone of enjoyment again, while all Dorian could do was keep from actually whimpering aloud at the loss. For a few interminable seconds he just felt empty and alone and lost as his mind started drifting back up to the surface, almost far enough to trouble him again.

But then just as suddenly the fingers were back, first resting lightly against his bottom lip and then slowly, gently, pushing in past his teeth. Dorian gasped around them and tried to move forward again, but his range was severely limited, still held in place by Bull’s one hand above him while the other slowly penetrated him, giving him just as much as he decided too, bit by bit until finally the second knuckles passed his lips and the advance stopped.

Dorian’s mouth was utterly full. The fingers were so very big and rough, calloused and scarred. They tasted of leather and blade oil, just like he had always imagined they would. They were so very present and strong and steady, and when Bull’s remaining fingers and thumb closed around his jaw and held his head in place it felt so firm and grounded and real that everything outside the two of them seemed like nothing but distant shades. His world had narrowed down utterly on those fingers and as he started to run his tongue along them as best he could and closed his lips around them to suck, he heard Bull’s breathy chuckle dip down into an almost subvocal, vibrating moan of lust.

Then the Bull leaned down and put his mouth right next to Dorian’s ear. “Good boy…” he half whispered, half moaned, “precious, pretty boy…”

The words went through Dorian like a lightening strike that shocked him out of his daze. That was it, that was his cue to come back. He had let himself drift and slide for so long, he had almost lost himself completely. His world was still spinning, his mind frantically searching about for the answer he knew he was supposed to give, the way he was supposed to fight, but it only came up with fragments and dust. He did not remember why, but he was not allowed… this. Whatever this was. He had lost control, he had lost sight of the situation, sight of everything. This was not how it was supposed to go, this was not following the rules.

With great effort he managed to wrench back control from his body that was still straining towards his captor, trying to grind against him, to do something for the ache between his legs. He managed to still his hips at last and opened his eyes, looking up straight into the Bull’s eye. His pupil was blown and his whole face showed an expression of desire and wonder that smote Dorian’s heart to see. No one had ever looked at him like that, and whenever he had looked like that himself nothing ever came of it but heartbreak. The Bull seemed to notice his struggle and drew back slightly. He didn’t let him go, but he pulled his fingers out of Dorian’s mouth so he could talk.

“I’m not. A boy.” He panted and hissed, but Bull then just growled back at him, a sound so dangerous and comforting at the same time. “Yes you are. Out there in the world you are a man. In here, in my hands, you are my boy.” And with that he shoved one of his massive thighs between Dorian’s legs and lifted it, taking some of the weight off and squeezing Dorian’s cock between his leg and Dorian’s own belly. Dorian barely kept from crying out at the simultaneous relief and new urgency of having some friction at last.

Bull’s voice that was still running through him like black syrup, punctuating each word with a thrust of his leg, “my precious. Beautiful. Needy. Human. Boy.” He was rubbing up against his cock hard enough to hurt, but Dorian was also pressing against him with all his weight and strength and had started snapping his hips and rutting against him wildly, while still trying to get his hands free. Trying to feel that it was impossible. And all the while Bull talked, quietly and hotly into his ear. “There you go, nice and hard, yeah,” he said, “oh I know you need to fight me. It’s alright, you can do that. I will win, I promise. Relax, I can take you…”

Even as Bull spoke, Dorian felt the fight go out of him. He knew it was foolish that he even still wanted to keep up appearances and control. He couldn’t. Bull had said so, this was a fight he couldn’t win. In this room, in these arms he was but a boy, not experienced enough to control his desires, to hide his need, to think about anyone but himself. And it was bad, so selfish, that he wanted nothing more than that. Wanted to take what the Bull seemed to be offering, take it all and never give it back again.

Dorian wasn’t stopping. He couldn’t stop himself and he couldn’t stop the Iron Bull. He tried to turn his head away, but Bull just shoved his fingers back into his mouth, harder this time and without gentleness, gripping his jaw tight. Pleasure and pain both burst open inside him, spreading heat and lightening from his cock through his gut all the way up to his thundering heart. A small squeak escaped him he grimaced and screwed his eyes shut, panting harshly and fighting the noises that were trying to force their way out of him, but also struggling against Bull’s grip on him, Bull’s thrusting fingers taking him, Bull’s voice in his head, his own need and desire to give in completely.

Bull leaned down next to his ear again and let out another low, rumbling moan of his own. “Hm, don’t do that, Dorian. Don’t hold back on me now, you don’t need to be quiet for anyone here, it’s just you and me. And I would really like to hear you. Hear how good I make you feel, hmmm…”

Dorian thrashed and whimpered and Bull continued murmuring in his ear, encouragements and reassurances as Dorian rocked on his thigh and struggled with his voice that was slowly making its way into his heavy breathing, and he squirmed at hearing how high it was and how much urgency and abandon and desperation rang with it.

“Yes, that’s it, there it is,” Bull rumbled, “such a wonderful voice. Don’t hold back, boy, let it out for me, want to hear you, yes, want to hear what I do to you…” And with that Bull surged forward, replacing his fingers in Dorian’s mouth with his own invading tongue again and jamming his thigh all the way up until their hips finally connected.

Dorian’s cock caught on his clothing as it was jammed hard against Bull’s belly. At the same time he felt Bull’s own cock for the first time, and even through both of their clothing it became instantly clear to him that he had not been thinking big enough. Not by a long shot.

Dorian couldn’t help but cry out against Bull’s mouth, a loud and desperate call of desire that rang out over Bull’s own growls and the sounds of their clothing rubbing together with Dorian’s frantic rutting. He pressed even closer in, connecting with his entire body and pressing his twitching cock into the crease between Bull’s belly and thigh. There he gave one or two last, desperately uncoordinated thrusts before all his muscles locked up on him as he came.

Heat exploded in him and through him and he could feel his entire body convulse together with his cock as he spat pulse after pulse of hot liquid fire into his underclothes. He had his head thrown back and was distantly aware that he was crying out wildly, but he couldn’t stop that anymore than he could stop the wild throbbing in his groin that seemed to go on and on and wring him dry.

Even after it ended, his entire body was still taut and shaking for a long time, pressing against the Bull with all his strength while his aftershocks lasted, his cock still kicking helplessly against his stomach several times until his cry fell off into a whimper at last and he went utterly limp in Bull’s grip.

 

Dorian’s mind was reeling and he felt so emptied out he could barely find a single thought within him. His body still sang with pleasure after his orgasm, but he was also slowly becoming aware that his underpants were completely soiled. He felt overheated and feverish and his clothes stuck to him unpleasantly with sweat, the heat under the leather stifling him.

Slowly as his mind returned to him bit by bit he also became aware that he was still half standing, half hanging between the wall and the Bull, only held on his feet by his massive form. He had not noticed, but Bull was no longer pinning his hands, but holding him upright with his arms around him and his leg still between his. That was when his embarrassment finally caught up with him and he groaned and tried to hide his face.

Above him the Bull just chuckled. “Ah, welcome back, Dorian.” He laughed, but then grew gentler, “come now, don’t hide. That was a thing of beauty, don’t be ashamed, come one…” But he didn’t stop Dorian from burying his face against his chest.

“I’m sorry.” Dorian whispered, swallowing hard around the crack in his voice.

“What for?” Bull asked in a voice so kind and gentle suddenly that Dorian was shocked nearly out of his train of thought.

“For… you know. Falling to pieces on you. And I haven’t even…” One of Dorian’s hands started making its way towards Bull’s crotch, but Bull caught it and held it in place above his stomach.

“Hey, it’s alright. This is still about you. About what you need, Dorian.”

“What?” He was just confused now. This had stopped making sense a long time ago.

Bull just shrugged. “I want to give you what you need. It’s what I like. Well, that and a few other things maybe.”

Dorian chuckled weakly. That at least made some semblance of sense. “I can imagine a few things there, yes. But I want to make it good for you too. Please, it can’t just be me…”

Bull pressed a kiss to the top of Dorian’s head. “Oh Dorian, believe me, it’s not just you. But come. I have an idea,” he said, letting the aroused rumble back into his voice. Dorian was coming to love that sound. It was wicked and devious, but it also signaled its very own kind of need. Dorian wanted the chance to hear how it could change and rise, how loud it could get and how desperate if someone were to make the Iron Bull himself squirm and lose himself in pleasure…

As he mulled over this strange new fantasy, Bull’s voice had taken on a thoughtful hum and Dorian opened his eyes to see him stare down at him with a contemplative smile. Dorian shook his head and filed the thought away for another time. Damn the Qunari and his damnable perceptiveness.

In the mean time Bull had started to work on Dorian’s clothing, opening buckles and untying laces in mostly the correct order. Dorian felt the cool air hit his skin in more and more places and sighed in relief. To his surprise Bull didn’t even throw the things on the ground, but draped them all over the chair that stood in the corner of the room.

Dorian enjoyed being undressed and lifted about by the Bull’s careful strength until he was down to his underclothes and suddenly remembered his particular predicament. He squirmed around and grasped a hold of them with both hands and Bull laughed. “Ah, are you feeling a bit sticky?”

“Well, if I am I know who to blame.”

That only made Bull laugh more, but he did let go of Dorian carefully, making sure that he was steady enough on his feet before drawing back. “Take them off,” he said, “and let me heat up some water.” And then he let Dorian stand there while he filled an old iron pot with water and placed it in the embers of the fireplace.

With as much grace as he could muster Dorian divested himself of the garment, wiping himself down with it a little and then climbed onto the bed. “Far be it from me to call your attire anything close to respectable clothing,” he said, crossing his legs on the bed and looking up at the Bull, “but you are, for a change, more respectably dressed than me.”

Bull looked down at him and grinned. “You want me to change that?”

“If you don’t mind,” Dorian said with exaggerated civility. It made Bull laugh, and Dorian was finding that he could never quite resist a smile at the sound.

Bull sat down on the bed next to him and started to undo the brace on his left foot while Dorian watched. He had seen the thing, of course, but he had never given it much thought. It seemed to be part of Bull’s armor in some way, but it was more difficult to take off. Indeed he needed to unscrew things on both sides before he could slip it off with his boot. When he had done that he looked up at Dorian again, as if waiting for comment. A strange look passed in his eyes when none came, almost like surprise, but it passed again. Then Bull got up and quickly stripped of his harness, his belt and his pants and finally stood completely naked before Dorian.

He was huge, in every sense. It was true that his cock was remarkably big, far bigger than Dorian had ever seen, still standing up half hard and magnificent, but what struck him most though in that moment was Bull’s sheer mass in general. He was very tall, of course, and broad, but in between he was also incredibly solid and dense. He was exceedingly muscled all over, but also had a distinct layer of fat over his belly, hips and thighs. Dorian was surprised that of all the things presently in front of him that fact was what made his groin tighten again the most. The Iron Bull was huge and massive and strong, but he was also so undeniably alive in the most primal way. Dorian knew he had never seen anything like it, nor would he ever again on any other creature.

Bull himself just smiled and let Dorian stare. He went over to the pot again and soaked a rag in the warm water before he came back, pushed Dorian over gently and actually started to wipe him down. Dorian squawked in embarrassment and tried to either swat Bull’s hand away from his crotch or snatch the rag from him to do it himself, but Bull then just put one hand to his shoulder and one to his hip and leaned on him. It pinned him in place completely and Bull’s amused expression above him grew a lot more dangerous and Dorian had to take a deep breath suddenly.

He was still more than a little wrung out and groggy from his first orgasm but he was already starting to swell again. It had always been like that for him, coming fast and getting hard again fast, at least the first time. It was another thing he usually tried to hide, but Bull had laid him open, spread him out naked on the bed and pinned him in place, hovering above him naked and heavy and present, and he was looking down at Dorian with such a knowing expression and such a warm and dangerous smile that all lies flew from him. He was getting hard again and if Bull didn’t stop he was going to come again.

Tomorrow he might blame all of this on a wildly exaggerated number of drinks, but right now, right here, he was not going to hide anymore.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is part one of this particular first encounter.  
> I’m sorry for leaving it off here, but all of us may have gotten carried away a little and I'll just post it in two parts.  
> That way you have time to read it, I have time to write it and everyone in Skyhold has time to take a deep breath or two.


	5. stripped and bare

There was nothing about Dorian that was not beautiful. Bull wondered, idly, if he actually knew this to be true, if under all that bluster and shows of arrogance Dorian knew how enchanting he really was.

Bull had him spread out underneath him, all that flawless brown skin on display, looking up with an expression more open than Bull had ever thought to gain from him. Dorian had abandoned the facade he had tried to cling to for so long and Bull felt that now he could look straight into his heart through his dilated eyes, more beautiful and more fragile than he had ever held in his rough hands.

He let his gaze wander from Dorian’s face down to where he held him pinned by the shoulder, silver skin against gold. Dorian was also starting to react again, straining up against him and Bull couldn’t help but laugh even as the arousal started tightening in him. Dorian loved the struggle, needed it as much as he needed to lose, so Bull tightened his grip on him and growled, making Dorian gasp. The boy was not fragile, he reminded himself, and for a human he was strong enough to make it unlikely that many of his partners had been able to treat him like this.

Careful not to put too much weight on his hands, Bull shifted until he was straddling Dorian’s legs. Their size difference meant that he couldn’t line them up, but he could still pin Dorian’s knees by sitting on them, which immobilized his lower half well enough and freed up a hand for Bull. He leaned down, careful not to hit him with his horns, and pressed a hard kiss against his cheek, forcing his head to the side so that he could get at his neck and lick a long, filthy stripe along his jaw all the way to his ear. Dorian gasped at that and stretched his head away further, giving Bull better access to his throat where he started to run the edges of his teeth along the jugular, savoring the little shivers this caused across Dorian’s neck and shoulders.

At the same time he trailed his left hand over Dorian’s hip, carefully avoiding his cock, running his fingers over the grooves between the muscles, enjoying the soft skin there and the way the touches made him twitch and strain towards him. The soft shivering had started up there too and Bull traced it with his hands, feeling the muscles react and jump.

At that point Dorian seemed to remember that his own hands were actually free now. He brought his left up to Bull’s right forearm, gripping it harshly and pressing it down harder into his own shoulder even as he strained against it. With his right he groped down between them and caught a hold of Bull’s hand and tried to drag it towards his cock.

Bull laughed against Dorian’s neck. “Hm… you want my hand somewhere specific?”

Dorian groaned and rolled his eyes a bit. “Yes, well, if you could get around to it it would be appreciated.”

Bull chuckled. “Well, if you want it, you will need to ask nicely.”

“Of course. It wouldn’t do to forget my manners. The Iron Bull, be so good and touch my cock. Preferably before it falls off.”

“Hmm, I didn’t hear the magic word there, did I?” Bull said and pressed his nose into the junction between neck and shoulder and took a deep breath. Dorian smelled of sex all over, and being so close to all that naked, fragrant skin was steadily going to Bull’s head and cock, making him shiver a little himself.

Beneath him, Dorian was still trying to tug at him and grumbled. “The magic word? Fasta vass, I know magic words that would set you on fire if you don’t get around to touching me soon!” His voice was clearly aiming at impatient and demanding, but Bull could hear the tremor and breathlessness in it. Dorian had only just come, Bull could still smell the release on him, but he was already getting desperate again. It was a thing of wonder, that need, and not just because it was supremely flattering. Bull could feel the heat burning in the body below him and it looked and felt like roaring fire, sprung from low embers that had been sweltering and waiting for far too long. Bull was glad he got to burn with him. Figuratively, he hoped.

He grinned and moved up again so he could look Dorian in the eyes. “If I was on fire, you wouldn’t want me to touch that pretty little cock of yours now, would you?”

Dorian met his gaze for several long moments, but eventually he turned his head again and looked away. “I’m not going to beg, if that is what you are getting at.”

Bull lent down and pressed a quick kiss to Dorian’s lips and drew back to watch them open for him again. Not far, but far enough to signal exactly what they needed.

“Oh, so defiant, I like that. But yes, you are,” Bull said and came in close again and kissed him, harsh and demanding, swiping his tongue inside at once and pressing his lips down hard. Dorian kissed him back, and Bull stilled every other movement to savor it. He kissed so differently from what Bull had expected. There were no big movements or flourishes or battles for dominance, only shy little flicks, his tongue making way for Bull’s and moving around him, coaxing him deeper, caressing him. His lips moved hesitantly too, so very gentle and sweet that Bull never even felt his teeth. Dorian did not kiss like he fought. Dorian kissed like he wanted to be conquered. Even if Dorian was not prepared to beg quite yet, his body certainly was. His mouth was so very clear about its need to be filled, submitting to Bull’s tongue as gratefully as it had accepted his fingers earlier.

In the mean time Dorian had given up on trying to move Bull’s hands and had started really exploring, stroking up Bull’s arms and over his shoulders like he was trying to touch all he could reach at once. He pressed his palms against straight expansed and ran his fingers delicately along ridges and scars, wrapped his hands around curves they could get a grip on.

His hands felt warm and gentle one moment and hot and demanding in the next and all the while the low moaning had come back into his voice and Bull’s cock was starting to ache. He had given himself little mind up till now, but Dorian’s hands and mouth and voice were running hot through him and it was becoming difficult to ignore his own throbbing and urge to bear down and rub himself against the enticing body beneath him. Not enough to actually break his control, of course, but enough to make him wish it would.

Dorian’s hips were straining towards him again now, trying to get into contact with his belly apparently. Bull laughed and lifted himself away a little. “Ah, no. I’m not going to let you rub off on me again. You already had that once.”

Dorian squirmed and scowled. “Vishante kaffas! What do you want?”

“I want you to say please.”

Dorian strained up harder, actually bringing his strength to bear and Bull noted with joy that he did have to use some of his own to keep him down.

“You get off on begging?” Dorian groused after a few moments of fruitless struggle.

“Oh yes,” Bull hummed against him, “such a proud boy as you, but you need me to touch you, don’t you? So what will it be?”

Dorian huffed and squirmed, but remained silent. He reached up with both hands and cupped Bull’s jaw. Then he ran those clever, clever fingers along both of Bull’s ears. He kept from twitching them with considerable effort, but he couldn’t suppress a quiet hiss. They were very sensitive, and Dorian’s hands were so gentle, he could feel the shiver of sensation run all the way from his ears to his cock, making it twitch in ways he couldn’t let his ears do anymore.

“Hm…” Bull sighed, “are you trying to bribe me here? Beautiful and clever you are…”

Something in Dorian’s breathing changed, a subtle shift in the air between them that Bull very nearly missed.

“Indeed,” Dorian said in a voice almost as steady as when they had started, “see, you think I failed to notice how this is affecting you. You think you can just lie naked on top of someone like me and not have it be obvious how much you want me? Your position is not as strong as you think.”

Bull tilted his head a little, rubbing an ear into Dorian’s hands purely by accident. Under the genuine humor in his voice he also heard the fragments of Dorian’s performance reassemble themselves, bit by bit.

“Oh yes,” Bull said, “there you are, so sure of yourself, bargaining with me. You think you can bear that confidence out?”

Dorian sniffed a little. “Of course I can! Have you even looked at me?”

Bull looked down into Dorian’s eyes again and he could see that wall draw up again. Slowly and unsure yes, but clearly visible once more. Bull frowned. Whatever it was he had done to cause this, he would make it right again. Out in the world he quite enjoyed watching Dorian perform. In here it was more disturbing than he wanted to contemplate right now.

So instead he brought both hands to Dorian’s hip and shoulder again and closed his grip tightly as he drew back his lips from his teeth and growled at him, as inarticulate and primal as he could manage. Dorian gasped and lost his touch to Bull’s ears as his eyes flashing in renewed abandon before they fell closed again. Bull didn’t try to stop his own heartfelt moan at the sight as lust and relief flowed through him again.

“Oh you really need it like this,” he rumbled into Dorian’s ear as he closed his legs to pin Dorian completely, “need to feel that I have you, don’t you.”

Dorian just shivered and strained into his hands and Bull decided on a change of tactics. He leaned down again and wrapped his arms around him, one around his shoulders and one under his ass and lifted him up, ignoring his indignant squawk and flailing. Then he sat back down against the headboard and arranged Dorian so that he was straddling his lap.

All protests Dorian was no doubt trying to articulate suddenly evaporated when Bull drew his hips up against himself and their cocks connected again, this time without any barriers. Dorian gasped and pressed forward into the contact and Bull retook his tight hold on his hips. There would be bruises there tomorrow.

He took a moment to admire them both together like this. Dorian’s cock was smaller than his, naturally, and it had such a lovely coloring with the brown skin and the deep red head. Bull could feel it against his own hot like a brand. This was not going to take long.

Dorian was already keeping his mouth busy, kissing and biting and licking across Bull’s shoulders, wet and warm across the expanses of skin, following lines of scars like roads for his tongue, utterly lost in fascination. His hands were still on Bull’s arms, clinging now more than stroking.

Bull reached down between them and wrapped his hand around both their cocks, completely enveloping Dorian’s against his own, and squeezed. Dorian moaned loudly, trying to muffle it against Bull’s skin without success, and the sound of Dorian’s voice paired with the sudden spike of pleasure made Bull throw his head back and groan up at the ceiling. Dorian gasped and fumbled a hand between their bodies, joining Bull’s grip on them and squeezed the other side and started to rut forward, fucking into their joined hands and rubbing mercilessly against the underside of Bull’s cock.

Dorian was panting deeply as his voice rose louder and louder. Bull felt the pressure rise and swell in his groin, fighting his release already, trying to hold on till Dorian was done. But their hands were so warm and tight and his smell and his voice and the feeling of his teeth closing down on his collarbone came over Bull like waves and before he knew to draw back he was coming, a great force of pure fire forcing itself out through his cock and he yelled out his release as he pulsed long ropes of come over their hands and against Dorian’s smooth belly.

Even over his own shout and the pleasure thundering through him Bull heard Dorian cry out as he snapped his hips forward a few times against Bull’s still pulsing cock, joining his release and mixing their seed, twitching and shivering as his hips continued to pump them both through it, rubbing them together until they were utterly spent.

 

Bull’s aftershocks were slow and drawn out, contracting all his muscles slowly several times even as Dorian’s whole body shook in his lap. At last they both came down again together and Bull leaned back against the headboard, letting Dorian lean against him and rest.

As soon as they had both caught their breath again somewhat Bull got a hold of Dorian and rearranged him on his lap until he was sitting sideways, leaning against Bull’s chest with his left side and both legs together, no longer straining against the stretch. Bull wrapped one arm around his shoulders and laid the other over his lap. Dorian leaned against him like that for a long while in silence until at last he spoke again in a lazy drawl. “So, what now? Are we just going to stay like this till we stick together permanently?”

Bull kept his arms around him and hummed thoughtfully. There was one question he still wanted an answer to, and he just had an idea. “If that is what you want,” he said, “if not, there is one more thing I’d like to try.”

“And what would that be?”

“See, there is this thing you do…”

Dorian sat up halfway and stiffened just enough for Bull to take note. “I do a great many things, you will need to be more specific.”

Bull stilled his hands and fixed Dorian with that look that always seemed to freeze him in place.

“Dorian, you are beautiful,” Bull said, his tone measured and serious and full of intent. He meant this and he needed him to know it.

Sure enough, there was the guard in his eyes, the wall being drawn up again. “Oh, is that all?” Dorian said with a laugh, “I know I do that all the time. I can’t ever seem to stop, it’s the darndest thing.”

“Dorian, you are beautiful.” Bull said again in the same tone, unblinking and unperturbed.

Dorian didn’t answer, but lifted his head up proudly and stiffened his shoulders in Bull’s grip. He was smiling haughtily and Bull could see real fear in his eyes now.

“Do you remember your watchword?”

Dorian’s eyes flickered again. “What, in case you praise me too much? If that is the most depraved thing you can come up with I’m afraid you will have to wait a long time for me to say it.”

“Say it for me now. Please.”

“Alright, as you wish. It’s Katoh.” Dorian said, his voice already wavering a little.

“Thank you. You use that word, I stop. If you do not use it, I will push you. I might not stop pushing you. Do you understand?”

Dorian stilled at that, his mask growing stiff. Bull could tell he was pushing it already, such a fragile thing. Dorian was so good at it usually. He must be very unused to having it pushed if he reacted so strongly now. The poor boy spent so much time telling the world how sure he was of himself, truly believing that he needed to or no one else would. And if someone else did it completely pulled the rug out from under him. When was the last time someone had done that for him? Had anyone ever done that for him?

Bull placed his right hand gently between Dorian’s legs, cupping his limp cock and his sack easily and stroking the crease of his groin with his thumb. Dorian closed his eyes and leaned his head against Bull’s shoulder, avoiding Bull’s gaze and groaning deeply.

“So, gentleness you can take, and praise you can take. But both together is too much to handle, am I right?” Bull asked softly.

Dorian whimpered and started to shake against him, a full body tremor that started in his spine and traveled all the way to his hands that were now clinging to Bull’s shoulders again.

Bull continued, “because if I am rough you start to float and you don’t need to pretend. But if I am gentle you need to respond, and you can’t just accept it.”

Dorian’s cock started to stiffen under his palm again and he smiled into Dorian’s hair, letting that smile into his voice with warmth and certainty.

Dorian huffed again and pressed his hips up into Bull’s hand. His entire body was trying to strain, but his muscles would clearly no longer really obey him. Bull pressed his hand down harder and Dorian hissed. He started squeezing gently, feeling the twitching and swelling in his hand, so vulnerable and tentative it stole Bull’s breath away.

“You are enchanting,” he whispered and started stroking with the flat of his palm, “unique,” he kissed the crown of Dorian’s head and held his lips there, talking into his hair, “magnificent. Glorious one.”

Dorian gasped and shook as his cock grew harder with every word. He clung to Bull’s shoulders, his fingers digging into his skin and groaned, low in his throat, a sound of desperation and bitter pain.

“Bull…” he whispered, his voice utterly broken, “please…”

“Do you want me to stop?”

Dorian didn’t answer, just gave a tiny shake of his head. Bull pressed him into his own chest tighter and took a deep breath, in and out, and Dorian stilled a little in his arms, though he was still shaking.

“Do you want me to make you come?”

Dorian groaned and nodded. Bull finally wrapped his hand completely around Dorian’s still hardening cock and gave it a careful squeeze. Dorian moaned out loud and swore in slurred Tevene. It was twitchy and sensitive in Bull’s hand so he was as gentle as he could be. He stopped dragging the skin after a particularly strong jerk from Dorian, and instead just focused on holding it and kneading it by letting his fingers ripple, softly squeezing in all over.

Dorian just clung and shook and whimpered, trying to thrust into Bull’s fist now and again, but he was to tender and overwhelmed to do so effectively. His breathing was ragged and his whole body was covered in sweat, sticking his hair to his forehead. His face was slack in pleasure and exhaustion, his mouth still half open and his mustache as wrecked as the rest of him.

And all the while Bull talked, alternating between all three languages he knew, though Dorian seemed to out of it to even notice. He wrapped his left arm around him further and gently pushed one finger into Dorian’s mouth again. He moaned and sucked on it while he let go of one of Bull’s shoulders and reached up to wrap his fingers tightly around one of Bull’s horns, holding his head in place so close against his own.

After a long time of clinging and whispering at last Dorian’s shaking changed to short little jerks and he came in Bull’s hand suddenly and without a sound, weak and jittery and with the tiniest little spurt. His mouth dropped open with it, losing Bull’s finger and letting out a long, low sigh of utter exhaustion just as his hands lost their grip on Bull and slid down to lie where they fell.

 

After some time just spent breathing and resting, Dorian broke the silence again, his voice uncharacteristically serious and raspy. “Cassandra was wrong, you know. I’m not concerned that I’m not handsome. I do know that.”

Bull chuckled and kissed his head. “You really are.”

“See, when you say it like that, it’s ok. I just…” Dorian said and Bull could feel him frown against his chest. He reached up to stroke his hair from his forehead with his clean hand. “When I say it like we’re both in on some joke,” Bull said, “or when I say it like it’s a passing thing I notice, like that your skin is brown or that your hair is black. When I say it like it’s just your face I’m talking about.”

“Ugh, your doing that thing again,” Dorian grumbled.

“Being right?”

“Yes. It is infuriating.” Some humor was creeping back into Dorian’s voice and Bull was glad to hear it this time.

“I like doing that a lot. I don’t know if you’ve noticed.”

Dorian huffed softly, but any other reaction seemed far beyond him. Bull repositioned his arms around him until he could lift him off his lap and lay him out on the bed.

“I’m going to clean us up a bit now. Just stay put, ” Bull said and Dorian mumbled something unintelligible. A protest, probably, but Bull just ignored it.

By the time he came back to the bed with the wet rag and a towel, Dorian was fast asleep. Bull felt a sharp pang of protectiveness at seeing him like this, so wrung out and trusting, so vulnerable and in his care that Bull needed to mentally smack himself to get moving again. How like him to see one of the most dangerous people alive, a Tevinter Altus capable of tearing the souls from his enemies while incinerating their bodies with a thought, someone he would be actually afraid to face in a fight, and think ‘this one needs my protection’.

Bull set about cleaning Dorian as best he could without waking him and giving himself a thorough wipe down. Then he climbed into bed beside him, drew him against his side and arranged the blanket over both of them before drifting off himself, letting the memory of Dorian’s voice as he came ring in his mind all the way into his dreams.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this sure got away from me almost as much as it got away from them. You know how characters sometimes just do what they want? Yeah, these two are the worst offenders in that regard, completely losing their cool and making me write almost 8k words of smut in the process.  
> But as Dorian would say: “Ah well…”  
> We will just have to wait and see where they go from here now. So stay tuned to find out what they make me write next, I guess :)
> 
> Also thank you again for your kind responses!


	6. after the fact

When Dorian woke up it was still in the middle of the night. Judging by the darkness he had only slept an hour or two, but whatever inebriation he might have had and whatever tiredness from the road yet remained seemed to have flown from him. He stared up at the ceiling and the stars twinkling through the broken beams, clear and cold in the mountain air.  


His body was still singing. It felt wrung out and empty in the best of ways, relaxed like he had seldom ever been. He was also a bit sticky, but he didn’t even mind. He felt weightless and boneless and like he still had Bull’s hands on him everywhere. His hip and shoulder felt tender and bruised and he reveled in the feeling, the slight thrum of pain still keeping him held. Something like arousal still coursed through him, but muted and quiet, calm and not urging him to do anything. A part of him, most of him, wanted to feel like this forever.  


The Iron Bull was fast asleep beside him, snoring obliviously, and Dorian remained pressed against his side, soaking up his warmth and his solid presence for longer than he should. He should, in fact, get up and leave. Preferably now, while there was still any chance to do so unnoticed. Not that he had any illusions of the whole thing remaining a secret for long. Bull was bound to say something about it, to him or to the others, but it was one thing to have people know about this in theory and quite another to be seen sneaking out of another’s room in the morning like a horny stable boy. Not that he could quite define the difference to himself, but he was sure there was one.  


What would they think of them both now? He had been in the south for long enough to know that most people around didn’t see it as anything all that noteworthy, two men sharing a night. This was a special case though. This was not just two men, this was a Qunari mercenary and a Tevinter magister together. No matter that they were neither, technically, the impression they made on the common folk was all too clear. He wondered who would emerge from this worse in the public eye, Dorian for corrupting him or the Bull for falling for it? It was disconcertingly hard to tell. And how was he to argue now how much he despised Fereldan beer? How was Bull supposed to argue… whatever it was he was playing at?  
He looked at his face again, slack and peaceful in sleep but scarred and rough too, still wearing his eye patch. Qunari mercenary. A mercenary only if one ignored that he was fighting for a cause and a Qunari only if one ignored the kindness and gentleness he had shown the Vint in his bed, without reason or provocation, damn him. This could have been so easy. But no. Why couldn’t he have just taken Dorian for his own pleasure and left everything else alone? Why couldn’t he just be some bonehead who thought about nothing but drinking and fighting? Mercenary companies were teeming with the type. Or some heavy handed Qun fanatic, Thedas was teeming with those too. But Bull was both, and neither, and it was giving Dorian splitting headache.  


He just needed to get used to it, or better, ignore it entirely. Sharing one night with the man hardly made any of that his business or concern, no matter how intense that night had been.  


Dorian had to ignore so much now, it was already getting tiring. Ignore the fact that the Qunari was kinder, gentler and more thoughtful than anyone Dorian had ever bedded. Ignore how good it had been, how it had made him feel more vulnerable and safe than anything ever had, how the Bull had stripped him of his usual performance and bluster with his roughness and gentleness alike. Ignore the feeling of those hands all over him as well as the looks of wonder that still haunted Dorian when he closed his eyes. Ignore the sound of that voice praising him, still rumbling through Dorian’s mind like a constant presence of comfort and stability and safety. Ignore the fact that Dorian still hadn’t left.  


Instead of running for the hills, or at least for his own room, he was still lying here, thinking. Something he could just as well do in his own bed, without the contact of that warm silver skin that seemed to have glued him in place.  


This, this was why it had been a bad idea in truth. If anyone asked, Dorian’s story was that he was good at this. The leaving part. Leaving and never looking back, leaving without any flighty fancies. He had told himself that too, time and time again, but he couldn’t summon the mantra now. With the warmth beside him and in him and the calm breathing and peaceful quiet it felt like the lie was more of an insult to his intelligence than anything.  


Also it didn’t matter. He didn’t need to believe it, he just needed to act like it. That part he was actually good at, and so he left his thoughts where they lay and swung himself out of bed.  


The moment he lost contact with Bull’s skin the icy air of the room hit him with a jolt he was only partially prepared for. It was truly freezing and it shot through him like a lance to the heart, constricting his chest and making him gasp. Bull stirred at the disturbance and mumbled a little as Dorian staggered out of bed, hugging himself tightly against the all pervading cold.  


Damn thinking he was good at this. Leaving felt like ripping off a bandage, worse every time, and this had been the worst one yet. If he didn’t stop doing this one day his heart might just stop. He stumbled over to where his clothes lay draped over the chair and quickly pulled them on. He couldn’t find his underpants, but it was too cold and Bull was still too restless to search for them now without risk of waking him or freezing something off, so he ignored them, wrapped himself in his cloak and left.  


  
***  


  
When Bull woke up it was already well past morning. He sat up with a yawn and looked to his side, finding himself alone. He was not really surprised, Dorian was a skittish creature at the best of times. Bull just hoped he had at least stayed long enough to sleep through the night. He had been so far gone and so wrung out and the thought of him stumbling over the dark empty courtyard like that alone made Bull’s chest clench again. He was getting that a lot lately and sighed at it. He was always overprotective towards his friends, he knew that, and he should start cutting it out sometime soon. Krem for one would certainly agree.  


With a sigh he got out of bed, and then all serious thoughts left him when he spotted Dorian’s underpants, lying crumpled next to the bed. Obviously he wouldn’t have wanted to put them on again after what they went through, but he could have at least taken them. Or maybe he meant to come back for them? Either way, the potential for hilarity was endless, and Bull was going to wash them, fold them carefully and then exploit them for all the humor they were worth. Not kind, maybe, but hilarious, definitely.  


He did not take long to get washed and dressed himself and climbed down the stairs into the pub in search of breakfast. Dorian was sitting at the bar with a bowl of porridge and a steaming cup in front of him. He was sitting very straight and proud, but Bull could see from the tension in his back and the corners of his eyes that he had hardly slept the night, if at all.  


“So, about last night…” Bull began and sat down beside him. Dorian slumped in on himself a little and groaned, looking over at him with an exasperated eye roll. “Discretion isn’t your thing, is it?” He asked with resignation.  


Now it was Bull’s turn to roll his eye. No, discretion was certainly not his thing and neither was the shame and fear Dorian seemed to associate with the term. This was not Tevinter and its ways were not the ways of the world. Or the ways of the Iron Bull, for that matter, as it was certainly not his custom to make his bed partners run away at their earliest convenience.  


Bull felt angry suddenly. It wasn’t Dorian he was angry at, but just the way he thought he had to run and hide after the fact seemed so wrong. Someone had made him feel like he had to do that. Bull conceded that he may actually be angry at the Tevinter Imperium here. Damn the whole thing to ashes anyway with its barbaric customs. Not one person he cared about had not been hurt by it in one way or another. But destroying that whole nest of vipers was a task for another day, so Bull just settled on needling Dorian a bit and making a point in the process.  


He drained his mug and slammed it down onto the bar. “Three times!” He crowed in triumph, loud enough for all around to hear. Then he leaned over to Dorian as if to whisper to him, but just used his normal voice to say, “do you want those silky underthings back, or did you leave them like a token?” Dorian jumped a bit at the volume and then glared at him. Before he could protest, Bull just continued, feigning sudden realization. “Or wait… did you leave them so you would have an excuse to come back, you sly dog!”  


Dorian’s expression was complicated, and even Bull was not quite sure what was going on. He was trying to glare, sure, but he couldn’t quite get it to work and there were a lot of fleeting little flashes in his eyes, of something like worry and fear and then hope and finally, actual amusement. Bull just continued smiling and waited, and sure enough, slowly Dorian’s expression smoothed out again and even showed the faintest hint of a smile in the corner of his lips. Half of the rather full tavern must have heard, but no reaction had been offered from anyone. All talking had stopped when Bull had slammed his mug down, but now they all just went back to their conversations, like Bull knew they would.  


Dorian looked at him thoughtfully, but still not quite able to hide his smile. “If you choose to leave your door unlocked like a savage, I may or may not come,” he said at last, quietly but above a whisper. Then he turned back to his breakfast as if nothing had happened.  


Bull chuckled. He could not know for sure that Dorian would be back, but he did believe his chances were very good indeed. “Speak for yourself,” he said and went to get his own porridge.


	7. of the darkest and brightest places

If Dorian had thought that the hinterlands were a little on the muddy side, he had not reckoned with what the south could do if it really got going. They smelled the place even before they saw it, a thick dank reek of decay on the wind that made Dorian cover his nose with his sleeve. This was not going to be a good time.  


They were walking through a dense cluster of dark pine trees when the ground grew soggy underfoot until their boots squelched with every step, sending up even more stench from the disturbed mud. There was a thick mist crawling over the ground and between the trees and it was dim, wet and bone chillingly cold.  


“The fallow mire,” Varric remarked as they reached the first rickety bridge, “Fereldans really have a knack for naming things, don’t they?”  


“I think it’s descriptive,” Eleanne said, “It gives you a clear idea of what to expect.”  


“I could think of a few even more descriptive terms,” Dorian mumbled under his breath.  


“So I heard,” Varric laughed, “a few of them were quite creative. You should offer guided tours.”  


“I might consider the strategy when I get back to Tevinter. Explain to them exactly what it is they want to rule and they’ll all want to stay at home.”  


Varric laughed. “Fereldan! Come for the unlimited power, stay because you’re stuck waist-deep in black sludge.”  


“We’re not here to admire the scenery,” Eleanne said with a chuckle, “we just want to get out again with more soldiers than we had on the way in. The perfect strategy for any battle.”  


Bull tested the bridge with one foot, making it shake warningly. “I wouldn’t fancy doing much battling on these things. Seems it’d be asking for a bath…” He got onto the first plank and it creaked. “Alright then,” he said, “don’t follow me too closely.”  


He started to make his way over the decaying planks, followed at a careful distance by the others. Dorian went first with Varric and Eleanne brought up the rear.  


“Whatever you do, don’t fall in,” she said, “scout Harding said we’ll be swarmed by the undead if the water is disturbed.”  


Dorian peered out into the gloom, but it was far too dim and murky to see anything. He could feel the magic in the swamp though, just as muddy and dark as the water. “Fascinating,” he said, “the ambient level of magic is quite noticeable, but it is still very low for such a powerful effect.”  


Bull looked over his shoulder at him. “They are corpses. Coming out of the water. Most people would not call that fascinating."  


“Well, it’s not like I want to stay here and study it, and I certainly don’t expect you to be interested in the fact that this harnesses a complex idea like ‘standing water’ for a triggered infusion effect. But it is quite the feat, even if it is rather unsanitary.”  


Bull laughed. “Unsanitary. Rotting corpses rising from the water, and your main objection is hygiene.”  


Dorian chuckled a little too. “Well, of course. It wouldn’t do to get any mud on my clothes.” Then a thought struck him and he grew serious again. “But still, that is a point. If we are attacked, do not let them touch you and avoid all fluids. They are not just disgusting but bound to be very toxic indeed.”  


Bull grumbled. “This place stinks, boss,” he said, “it stinks in every possible way.”  


It did stink. The smell had been bad when they entered, but it was getting progressively worse the further they ventured. Also the cold damp mist was starting to creep into Dorian’s clothes just as the murky magic began creeping on his mind. It was actually still daylight, but everything around was so dim that he could barely see.  


They reached the end of the first bridge without incident and came up on a muddy bank by a path that led  to a black obelisk. A few broken crates lay strewn about a broken cart.  


“Hm, friendly,” Varric said, looking around, “not ominous at all.”  


Dorian walked around the obelisk and found a veilfire basket. He stretched out his hand and channeled some magic so it burst into green flame. Then he took one of the torches lying nearby and lit it.  


“Great,” Bull said, frowning at him, “more magical crap.”  


“It’s just veilfire, Bull,” Dorian said and waved it a bit for effect, “nothing but the memory of fire.”  


“But why is it here? In a bog? Can’t say this place says ‘burning’ to me,” Bull wondered idly before glaring at it again, “stop waving it in my face.”  


Dorian stopped short for a second. “That… is not a bad question, actually. But I would refer you to Solas on that one, he knows more about fade related magics.”  


Bull snorted a laugh. “Right, I remember. You do undead, not demons.”  


“That is an amazing oversimplification, Bull. You fail to see the distinction both of the-”  


Dorian’s comprehensive explanation was abruptly cut short by a loud screeching and the squelching sound of feet in water and then by a terror demon literally leaping out of the ground at their feet.  


The battle was long and tedious. Once the demon was defeated the undead kept coming from the water for some time. They were not hard to kill, but very numerous and by the time Eleanne severed the head of the last one they were all splattered in stinking, rotting blood. Dorian spent some time trying to wipe himself down before he noticed that the constant grime he felt from the swamp’s magic had significantly decreased.  


“That was disgusting,” he said, “but the good news is that we seem to have eliminated a node. Which means less undead, at least in the nearest vicinity.”  


“Well, that’s something,” Bull said, “we should probably do that again when we find another of these things. But for the record, Dorian?”  


“Yes?”  


“I’m glad you do undead and not demons.”  


Dorian was just about to resume his earlier educational rant when he caught the teasing glint in Bull’s eye and chuckled. “Trust me, if I ever start ‘doing demons’, you and Sera will both be the first to know. She also has… theories… on how demons work.”  


Bull laughed. “I heard a few of them, yes. A clever girl, that one. Very creative.”  


“Do you claim to actually know more?”  


“Me? Fuck no! But you do undead and fire and time crap and won’t feel the need to educate me on the demon front. Ever.”  


Dorian smiled at him in mock indulgence. “I will keep my immense knowledge of a field I never studied to myself then.”  


“Right. Next order of business: Never talk to Solas.”  


“I’m right with you on that.”  


Bull chuckled. “What, you don’t want to hear about demons either?”  


“I would just rather not hear more about how I’m responsible for all the evil in the world.”  


At that Bull grew serious again. “Yeah… if it helps, he doesn’t like me much either.”  


“Ah well, yes. It is not like I expected to be as universally adored as I deserve. In fact I am very surprised I don’t get that more often. From people like you, to be quite honest.”  


“People like me? Nah, there aren’t any people like me. But, by ways of explanation, there aren’t any people like you, either.”  


It took Dorian a few seconds before it registered, but then he stopped short in his tracks in surprise. Varric and Eleanne nearly collided with him from behind, but Bull just sauntered on and started to whistle.  


They walked on for many hours, sometimes over wooden planks and sometimes over muddy but mostly stable ground. Dorian was not paying attention anymore. It hadn’t even been that much of a compliment, really, but Bull had still said it, for no reason Dorian could think of. Just a ‘you are unique’, unprovoked, not in bed. Dorian didn’t even know what to do with that in the slightest.  


He wanted to tell Bull that he was unique too, but he had already said that himself. Also it was such an obvious compliment to make someone like him. Bull was so unlike anyone Dorian had ever met, seen, heard of or thought possible, and it was hard to come up with a word or phrase that might convey that. Bull was just-  


Dorian shook his head in an attempt to clear out the thoughts. Thinking about getting bent over the nearest surface by someone was one thing, searching for ways to tell them that they were special was quite another.  


Speaking of nearest surface, the sun had started setting behind all the gloom and Dorian was really starting to feel his legs. They found a relatively dry spot in a ring of black, jutting rocks and set up camp.  


The fire they got going was small and rather pitiful though, and with even the weak sunlight gone the cold started creeping in from all sides. They all sat huddled close to the fire and shared cold rations of biscuits and jerky while Dorian shivered and couldn’t seem to stop. He was sitting next to Bull and was trying to sit as close to him as possible without actually touching him. In this chill, even his warmth didn’t get far. At last Bull gave a little sigh and moved over until their sides were touching and Dorian couldn’t help but lean against him, keeping his eyes carefully on his biscuit. There was an intake of breath from the other side of the fire and the sound of an armoured elbow hitting dwarven ribs, but Dorian just graciously ignored them. It was still freezing and wet and stinking, but there was nothing quite like Bull’s side for keeping warm.  


After they had finished eating, Bull stretched out his legs and rotated his feet slowly. The brace creaked slightly and Dorian could feel the slightest flinch in the muscles of his side. Bull stopped moving his feet. Dorian was just going to ask if he was ok, when he abruptly turned to him.  


“Hey, have you ever been to Minrathous?”  


Dorian had not expected that question, of the many possible ones. Also the insinuation that he hadn’t slightly stung. “Of course, I’m not a plebeian.”  


“You ever been to that place in the Vivazzi Plaza? With the big, cracked bell hanging off the roof?”  


Dorian could see it before him in perfect detail. “With the dancers, yes… You’re making me homesick,” he smiled slightly, he couldn’t help it. It had been so warm the day he had last been there, and all the colors had been so bright, all those decorations in the dancing hall and all the dresses and suits and silken veils of patrons and dancers alike. He felt the sharp pang again he always felt when he thought about home.  


“Though now I might say I miss the warmth as much as anything,” he pondered and he didn’t miss how he was slightly shifted closer against Bull’s side. His eyelids started drooping as exhaustion started catching up with him.  


“Ah,” Bull said, “I’d go back for the music and the food. And the dresses.”  


Varric laughed. “Tevinter! Come for the good food! That’s certainly something you don’t hear much.”  


“Oh, but you should,” Dorian mumbled, “Minrathous is the center of culinary endeavors in the Imperium. I promise you, it is magnificent, an art and a science all it’s own.”  


“I’ll take your word for it, Sparkler. But anyway, Bull, how did you come into Minrathous? I can hardly imagine you waltzing around in a pretty dress.”  


Bull chuckled. “I was spared the dresses. Mostly. But it was an extraction.”  


“Oh, one of your agents had his cover blown and you needed to flee with him over rooftops by the light of the full moon?”  


Bull snorted. “‘By the light of the full moon’, Varric, seriously?”  


Varric just grinned. “Yes! All spy stories need a full moon rooftop chase in there somewhere.”  


Bull just shook his head in disbelief.  


Dorian nudged him in the ribs gently. “But what happened?” he asked, “you can’t tell me you just hung about in dancing houses when you were supposed to be on a mission.”  


“Ah! No, you see, that is were my agent was! So get this: Vivazzi plaza dancing hall. Full house, music, drinks, flashy dresses, the works. In the middle of it me, posing as ‘exotic’ waiting staff, trying to extract my Viddathari agent, who happened to also be the lead dancer of the set, before her cover was blown in the middle of her performance.”  


“Oho!” Varric exclaimed, “this is much better!”  


“This we have to hear,” Eleanne agreed eagerly.  


Dorian just listened. He barely noticed that he had closed his eyes and was leaning on Bull, seeing the high vaulted hall before him. He could almost hear the orchestra play.  


“Alright, so, my agent had been working there for a while. Then it turned out that a magister wanted to buy the place, together with all the dancers.”  


Bull drew in his legs again and crossed them. Dorian unconsciously rested his arm on one big thigh. The camp was not cold anymore.  


“That by itself would not have been a problem, but it turned out that one of her suitors, some poor young playwright, had caught on to her cover and wanted her to run away with him. Now there was this thing in her solo number where she would be let down from the stage rigging on a trapeze. He thought this would be the perfect time for a dramatic intervention, and we were tipped that he was going to declare his undying love and demand that she defect from the Qun right when she was hanging from the ceiling like living target practice.”  


Everyone by the fire burst out laughing.  


“That is outrageously unlikely!” Dorian protested weakly, but he laughed along with the others.  


“Screw unlikely,” Varric said, “How did it end? Did the extraction work?”  


“Well, it certainly would have worked a lot better if she hadn’t decided that she loved him back. The long and short of it was: A lot of talk about love, a Viddathari gone Tal-Vashoth and the lesson that you can hide more smoke bombs in those outfits than you might think. Also that girl really could climb a rope…” Bull concluded with a grin, already drowned out by Varric’s laughter.  


“Tiny, you are not half bad at this! You should tell us more stories.”  


Everyone stared into the embers for a while. Dorian was still smiling and drifting, Varric and Bull were grinning, but Eleanne looked thoughtful.  


“Bull,” she said at last with some hesitation in her voice, “I thought Qunari didn’t have relationships like that.”  


“Ah, we don’t,” he said offhandedly, “but it’s a common Viddathari problem, at least among later converts.”  


Something seemed to shift in the mood and the camp grew silent. Dorian looked up to see Varric and Eleanne trade glances. They were both not smiling anymore and the silence was rapidly becoming uncomfortable. Something had happened, but Dorian couldn’t begin to say what. Bull also looked confused.  


“So the ‘Viddathari problem’” Eleanne said in a very neutral voice, “is that they still know love?”  


Dorian looked up at Bull. He looked a little lost at the change in tone, his brow creased and looking carefully from Eleanne to Varric and back.  


“No,” he said with slow precision, “the problem is in what they think love means. Those not raised under the Qun have this idea in their heads of what to do with those they love, or believe they love.”  


“What do you mean, ‘believe they love’?” Eleanne asked, ever so slightly sharp.  


Bull frowned. “Those two had known each other for two weeks and decided that they loved each other. Then they ran away together, severed all bonds of family and duty, abandoned all others they professed to love before. Because they loved each other and had sex a few times they thought they should throw it all away.” Bull’s voice had grown more and more animated as he spoke until he sounded actually angry. Dorian could feel him tense up, the side he was leaning against growing hard as stone. Then Bull suddenly took a deep breath and relaxed again. “Anyway. It makes for a good story, not a good life. That is why we have no such relationships under the Qun.”  


Varric and Eleanne both looked rather stunned while Dorian nodded to himself. When Bull put it like that it certainly sounded very reasonable.  


“It… it doesn’t have to be like that,” Eleanne tried again, “actually it’s rarely like that.”  


Bull shrugged. “Maybe. I couldn’t say. Most stories about this form of love are like that. Most stories these two had in their heads are like that, or they would never have gotten the idea to risk their lives in the stupidest move they could possibly make.”  


“That is what happens when you see stories and not lives, tiny. No one tells you of the farmer and the blacksmith who lived together till the end of their days, happy to be completely boring.”  


“Hm… I have seen those too, of course, but I never could tell how they do it. Those of us born into the Qun just don’t have that story in our heads. That’s why it doesn’t happen to us.”  


“Maybe one day it will, tiny.”  


“And you won’t run off in a cloud of smoke,” Eleanne added, smiling softly at last.  


“Right. No smoke. Got it.” Bull laughed, clearly relieved at the lightened tone. Then he suddenly let out a jaw cracking yawn.  


“Alright, let’s hit the sack,” Varric said, “for our next mission I’d like to go far north, by the way.”  


“When we’re done I’ll take you all to the Vivazzi plaza,” Dorian smiled to himself as his eyelids grew heavy again. He was awake enough to stand up on his own, but he was also sleepy enough to stick to Bull’s warmth closely on the way into their tent.


	8. winter is coming

They did make it out of the mire again with more soldiers and new allies, but by the time they reached the borders they were all tired, filthy and freezing. It was good to finally get clean and be free of the stench and the all pervading mist, but once they left the swamp the signs were everywhere that the year was already growing old. As they trekked through the hinterlands on their way back to Skyhold they were delayed again and again by people needing their help and with every day it grew colder. They picked up new supplies by the crossroads, warmer clothes and blankets, and Eleanne made arrangements with the merchants for more winter goods to be sent after them. By the time all the messages were sent the leaves were already falling from the trees and the air smelled of frost.  


Dorian found that while the new clothes did make riding in the cold more bearable, the frost in the nights still bit him through all the blankets. In the first camp of winter he lay awake long into the night, shivering too hard to fall asleep, until the Bull woke up from it. He made no comment, just mumbled something under his breath and lifted his blanket. Dorian’s pride didn’t even put up much of a fight and they took to sleeping like that from then on. They never spoke about it and Dorian tried not to think about it, just as he tried to ignore the slow, tingling arousal he felt while lying there, adding up every night to the slow burn of long self denial on the road. Bull didn’t seem to notice, or at least he made no comment and Dorian had no intention of ever bringing it up. He could hold out till Skyhold, he had promised himself.  


The progress they made was slowed significantly by the cold in the following days and Bull’s skin was so warm against him in the night, smelling strongly of earth and iron. Dorian didn’t even know when that smell had come to be linked with sex and comfort and safety in his mind, or how those three things had ever come to occupy the same thought together. He remembered disliking the scent once, it seemed so long ago, but now he just happily lay in the tent at night, pressing his back into Bull’s huge side, soaking up the warmth and luxuriating in it, reminded of things he had never known save in vague fantasies. He knew that they were just conserving body heat, sharing a little physical comfort on a cold road, but in the dim and closed of space of the tent Dorian found that he could relax in ways he never had before. It was difficult to be anxious or afraid when his surroundings smelled and felt and sounded like Bull.  


That is, he could have relaxed if it hadn’t been for the fact that for the last few days he had been getting hard pretty much the moment they lay down like this. He was glad that their preferred arrangement had him lying against Bull’s side with his back, so at least he wouldn’t give himself away, but it was getting progressively more difficult to keep from touching himself. Or turning around and touching the Bull, if he was feeling particularly honest.  


He was trying to keep a hold of himself though, so he just lay there basking in the warmth, the solid presence, the scent, the slow and calm breathing. He also had his mind full of past images and feelings, the hands and the mouth and the voice, those words and sounds of wonder and lust. He watched the fantasies run through his mind and felt the urge build up and spread until he was throbbing with it.  


Just as he became aware that he was already half dreaming and was sliding his hand down his belly, Bull shifted beside him, shuffling down a little and stretching his arm out above his head. He was breathing deeply through his nose close to Dorian’s scalp.  


Dorian fought with himself to still his hand and took a steadying breath. “Bull, are you awake?” He whispered when he trusted his voice again.  


“Mhm” Bull murmured, huffing a hot breath into his hair. Well at least he knew that he was awake this time. Hopefully it would help with his self control somewhat. He wrapped his arms around his own chest to keep his hands still and hoped against hope that the insistent heat and pressure would just go away soon so that he could fall asleep. But the Bull had other plans.  


“Dorian,” he sighed with almost audible eye-rolling, “really? Are you asking me to turn my back or something? Because I just found the perfect dent in the ground for my ass. It’s very comfortable.”  


“I was not!” Dorian’s voice almost squeaked in shock and indignation. “I was just asking if you were awake! You are allowed to think about something else occasionally.”  


Bull let out that low chuckle of his. “Are you actually going shy on me now?”  


Dorian just settled on grumbling something vague and uncharitable. He was still throbbing, badly, not helped by that deliciously rumbling voice so close to his ear.  


“Just do what you need to do,” Bull said, “I could help, you know. Or just watch again, if that is what you want.”  


With a flash Dorian was back in that night, saw himself lying there and desperately rubbing himself, Bull secretly watching him from the shadows. He couldn’t stop the jolt that went through him at that, and neither could he do anything against that damn shiver that had started up in his spine again. Now that he was lying against Bull with his back pressed into his side there was no way he could miss it. No way he wouldn’t know.  


Bull hummed a pleased sound. “Oh, you liked the watching? Hm… I might have known.”  


Dorian dug his fingers into his own ribs in an attempt to stop the telltale shaking. “I didn’t even know you were watching at the time,” he protested weakly.  


“Oh, but you were thinking about it?”  


“I may have been… among other things.” There had been so many things he had been thinking about that night, there was little point in denying it. Also it felt far too good right now, knowing that he knew.  


Bull hummed again. “Oh, I can imagine. All those pretty pictures, going through your head… You want me to guess which one made you come?”  


Dorian turned his head into his pillow to muffle his groan. He remembered exactly what picture that had been, and now he had it again, made all the worse because he now knew what it actually felt like to have those fingers in his mouth.  


Dorian was losing again, he knew. The throbbing in his cock was long past the point of going away again on its own anytime soon. Also Bull was now clearly enjoying himself.  


“If you fall asleep like that you know you’ll just make a mess of yourself in the night,” he remarked, casual and infuriatingly smug.  


Dorian huffed. “I am not doing this while lying up against you!”  


“Why not?” Bull was smiling, Dorian could hear it, and he stretched his arm again and repositioned it around Dorian’s head, almost touching him.  


“That is completely out of the question! What is it with you and… and…” he stopped, at a loss for an appropriate descriptor for what Bull was doing.  


“And what? Watching a beautiful boy deny himself into a frenzy? You could say that I have a thing.”  


“A thing. Alright. Fine. You be over there then with your thing and I will just go to sleep now, if you don’t mind.”  


Bull hummed again and flexed his hand deliberately in Dorian’s field of vision. “I think at this point I will need to hear the word.”  


“Which word?” Dorian asked, suddenly confused, “please?”  


Bull chuckled throatily, and it vibrated Dorian’s spine and chest. “No. Try again.”  


“Oh, you mean-” And with that, Dorian suddenly understood the predicament he was in. For one, Bull clearly had intentions now. If Dorian said the word, Bull would actually stop. Also it would mean that Dorian was admitting that he could not hold out like this. But if they kept going and the Bull persuaded him to touch himself or made him come, he would also lose, looking like a boy who could not keep his hands off himself in shared tents.  


The sudden image made him jerk, nearly dislodging his hands as they both tried to go for his cock together. He could just see it, himself with both hands thrust into his smalls, rubbing wildly and helplessly.  


Bull laughed into his ear. “Oh, what was that? Another pretty picture? I don’t even need to say anything, do I? You’ll end up coming tonight either way. Something tells me you won’t say the word.”  


Dorian clenched his hands as hard as he could and pressed his face into his pillow to stop a whimper. He would not say the word. He really needed to come far too badly for that now, but he was not giving up without a fight. Also he was not giving up until the heat that was building with every passing moment had reached its boiling point. He needed to come and he needed to fight and it held him suspended in a fierce and consuming lust he was not going to give up so soon.  


“Hm, I wonder,” Bull said conversationally, “if you weren’t into this so much, how would you do it?”  


“What kind of question is that?” Dorian scoffed, “how do you do it?”  


“Usually I just take care of it when I’m taking a leak. I’m sure you’ve done that too.”  


Dorian sniffed, as haughty as he still could, “I try to keep it to a minimum. I find that always feels a little too desperate for me.”  


“Ah, you would rather be desperate where I can see you? I can’t blame you there.”  


Dorian grumbled. “You think I’m doing this for your benefit?” Embarrassment was still there as a distant little voice in the background of his mind, but Bull just laughed.  


“No. I think you just really like it. That itch growing and growing until you can’t stand it and then holding on some more. It feels good, doesn’t it, having it spread and burn in you until you are fighting it in every waking minute. Until your control finally breaks.”  


Now Dorian did whimper, though he managed to keep it muffled against the pillow at least. Holding his hands was taking all his willpower and he couldn’t stop his hips from rolling, pressing his ass back against Bull and rubbing his cock against the inside of his smalls. It was far too little friction, but the feeling of it was making it worse. He needed it worse. He really wanted it to hurt.  


“Oh, it’s about to break, I know. Tell me, is it harder when you are touching me? Do you like to make it harder by watching me, imagining me catching you at it, or grabbing you and doing it for you?”  


Dorian’s mouth fell open with a silent cry and he bit down on his pillow.  


“You want me to make it even harder?”  


Bull shifted and for a second Dorian didn’t know what he was talking about until he felt Bull’s body rock, ever so slightly, and he heard the rhythmic slapping sound of Bull fisting his own cock, fast and hard and without reserve.  


With that, the fight was lost. Dorian’s hands both flew down, tearing the cloth away from his cock on their way down and finally, finally he got his right hand wrapped around his shaft as his left cupped his sack, pressing it up hard. It was a good thing he still had the pillow between his teeth by the time he gave his first tug. The sensation of it shot through his entire body like lightening, too fast and too sharp, making him cry out into his bedding, helpless to stop the sound, overwhelmed and too far gone to even rightly know why he wanted to be quiet.  


There was no buildup from there. Every tug gave him another brutal spark that made all his muscled lock up harder every time. Bull was panting next to him, had turned onto his side and was leaning over him, jacking himself hard and fast with his nose pressed into Dorian’s nape, and Dorian came with a strangled shout that tore its way out of his throat just as the tension in his entire body tore open as he spilled, spurting violently over his hand again and again in endless seconds of an almost painfully intense release.  


It finally let off again, leaving him utterly spent, still jerking at intervals when the aftershocks kicked through him. He heard Bull groan into his hair, deep and heartfelt, the trembling in his lips to Dorian’s scalp the only other indication of his own orgasm. Dorian pressed his body back into Bull’s as he shuddered through it and the knowledge that Bull was coming washed over him again almost like one of his own, less hard and sharp, warmer and gentler but just as satisfying.  


They both sighed as they relaxed, Dorian sagging in on himself and Bull rolling onto his back again.  


“So many ideas, pretty boy,” he chuckled breathlessly, “you give me so many ideas.”  


Dorian couldn’t help but chuckle a little too. “Another quality of mine, being an inspiration.”  


Bull reached over to his pack and produced two rags, using one to wipe himself off and handing the other to Dorian. Then he arranged himself so that his arm was lying around Dorian’s head again. “Oh, you certainly are that,” he murmured quietly, leaned over and kissed Dorian on the head. “Good night,” he said, tired and gentle.  


Dorian was already too far into sleep to stop himself from smiling.


	9. Our people far away

The letter Dorian received was brief and to the point. ‘After long suffering’ it said, and ‘he is with the maker now.’ He found himself staring at it for a long time. Eleanne came to see him, offered her sympathies and listened to him. She had even asked if he was alright. He couldn’t help but wonder what he had done to deserve the kindness of the good people he met. Felix had been like that too.  


He had actually spoken to the senate about the inquisition. The effect of his speech would still need to be determined, but it was a start. Dorian wondered if he would have done the same in Felix’s place, though it hardly mattered now. As Eleanne has pointed out in her usual optimistic way, he would have the opportunity to do even more one day, if he was lucky and followed good examples when he found them. He was beginning to find more and more of those in unexpected places.  


After Eleanne had left Dorian went back to the narrow window of the library that looked out over the courtyard. Winter was already well underway and the air was clear and cold, but no snow had fallen on the hold yet. Inquisition agents, merchants and builders were bustling around below, going about their business. Just like that, life went on.  


Dorian sighed. Felix had been sick for a long time, so it wasn’t like he hadn’t seen this coming, but it still lay heavy on him. He supposed he would need to go and talk to Alexius now, there really was no excuse to put it off any longer. But still he stood by the window, watching the people. A merchant’s caravan was just drawing through the gates, one of the last ones of the year. Many people came forward to greet it and Dorian saw the Iron Bull come striding towards it too.  


He smiled wryly to himself. Felix would have gotten a good laugh out of that story. ‘A Qunari mercenary, honestly? Where there no men of your own size to pick?’ Dorian could hear him clearly in his head. He would have laughed as he said it though, more amused than disapproving. Felix always had been.  


Below, the Bull pushed through the throng towards one of the carts. He talked to the dwarves for a while before they reached over and handed him something small Dorian couldn’t make out. He sighed and pinched his nose. He needed to stop procrastinating.  


He took the route over the battlements to the tower reserved for the mages, and even the short distance had him shivering with cold. As he entered, several heads turned towards him, most with less than friendly expressions, but he ignored them and took the stairs leading up.  


The corner they had reserved for his former sponsor was small and completely cluttered up with stacks of books and paper. Alexius sat at his desk, hunched over a massive tome and didn’t look up as Dorian entered. An inquisition soldier stood guard nearby, leaning on a bookshelf and looking bored out of his skull.  


“Alexius,” Dorian said in greeting, but he just got a vague grunt in reply. He stepped up to the desk and leaned on it, trying for nonchalance. “So, I gather the inquisition has been treating you well?”  


“Yes,” Alexius said without looking up, “the inquisitor is too kind.” His voice was scratchy and flat.  


Dorian resisted the urge to make a quip about it being one of her faults. It was clear that it had been meant that way. He swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. “I just wanted to say, I’m sorry about Felix.”  


Alexius did not react. He just kept staring at the open page and Dorian wondered how long he had been doing that today, looking and not reading. He straightened up again, at a loss for words. After a long moment of watching and waiting, he finally turned to leave. He considered a variety of parting words, both kind and unkind, but in the end he just settled on a parting nod that wouldn’t be seen.  


As he stepped out of the tower again he felt a hard weight settle on his heart. Felix was gone, and so was the Alexius he had known. He didn’t want to dwell on it, and indeed neither of them would have thanked him for it, but try as he might he couldn’t get the weight to lift. His eyes stung and he cursed under his breath.  


Before he knew it his feet had carried him over the courtyard and through the tavern door. There were few people there this early in the afternoon, but Cabot was at his his post as always. He looked up at Dorian and frowned in concern. “Hey, you alright?” 

Dorian smoothed his expression as far as he could. “Of course, I’m fine,” he said shortly, “just give me some of the least vile brandy you have.”  


Cabot turned around to the liquor shelf when a familiar presence materialised at the bar next to Dorian, making him jump. Qunari should not be allowed to move that quietly.  


“Nah, don’t do that,” Bull said to Cabot, “I’ve got this.”  


Dorian frowned up at him. “You’ve got it?” He asked, more sharply than he really meant to, “Got what?”  


Bull appeared unfazed. “Come with me. I got something I’d like to show you. It’s better for drowning sorrows than any brandy.”  


Dorian sighed. He probably should have expected that, but he still felt bothered. “I’m really not in the mood, Bull,” he said and made to turn away from the bar. A huge hand on his shoulder stopped him. He turned back to say something biting, but Bull was just looking at him like he was being silly.  


“I meant something to drink, Dorian,” he said, far too patiently, “just come with me. You’ll like it, I promise.”  


“Alright then. It can hardly be worse than the swill they have here. But don’t get any ideas.”  


To his surprise, Bull didn’t even offer a quip, but lead the way up towards his room and Dorian followed. Might as well see what he had. He could always just steal it and scarper if need be. Get drunk without the complicated company.  


Once they were in his room Bull closed the door behind them and went over to his dresser. He opened the lowest drawer and rummaged for a bit and then turned back to Dorian with a simple, unadorned wooden box and a triumphant grin.  


“It took forever to get this,” he said, “but I do know some really amazing people.”  


Dorian eyed the box sceptically. “So I have been told.”  


Bull opened it with a flourish. Inside there lay a dark brown brick, pressed tightly from some sort of powder. Dorian stared at it in confusion for a moment before recognition dawned on him. He had never seen it pressed like that before, but the faint scent emanating from the box was unmistakable.  


“Cocoa,” he whispered in awe, “you actually managed to get cocoa!”  


Bull laughed. “Yes! Bloody difficult it was too, most southerners wouldn’t know it if you dropped it on their heads. But it turns out my contacts can get stuff for me. With some persuasion.”  


“So it appears…” Dorian said when a sudden thought struck him. “Bull, does this actually come from Par Vollen?”  


Bull’s grin grew even wider. “It does! Don’t ask. And don’t tell anyone.”  


“Alright, I won’t. If you share, that is.”  


“That’s the idea! Just sit down while I make this.”  


Bull started shoring up the fire and Dorian looked around awkwardly. The room only contained the dresser, the bed and the one chair by the fire. He settled on the bed, sitting down on the edge and leaning his shoulder against the headboard. Bull got the fire going, filled a pot with milk from a jug and hung it over the flames. Then he took the brick from its box and started to scrape it with his knife, letting the powder fall into the milk. He smiled as the warm scent of chocolate filled the room.  


“Ah, cocoa,” he said, “it’s been so long since I had it. So long ago it still reminds me of the Tamassrans.”  


Dorian tried to connect those two things in his mind, but came up short. “Does that mean you had cocoa as a child?”  


Bull looked over his shoulder at him in surprise. “Yes. You didn’t?”  


“Not as a child, no. We generally consider it too bitter for children to like. I didn’t acquire the taste for it until much later.” Dorian fell silent again and suppressed a sigh. He remembered drinking cocoa with Alexius and his family when he had first been offered the sponsorship. He had been so nervous that day. The day he had met Felix for the first time.  


Bull was done with the scraping and put the brick back into the box. Then he opened another drawer and took out a honey jar. “Ah, yes. That is were the sugar comes in,” he said and waved it in demonstration.  


Dorian couldn’t help but make a face. “You drink cocoa with honey? That sounds… strange.”  


“Well, with sugar usually. I couldn’t get the right kind though, so this will have to do.”  


Dorian huffed. That really didn’t sound as good as Bull obviously thought it was. “Alright,” he said, “I’d like mine without, if you don’t mind.”  


Bull just shrugged. “Have it your way. Your strange, bitter way.” He took the pot from the fire and filled two large ale mugs. Then he handed one to Dorian and upended the better part of the honey jar into the other.  


Dorian stared in disbelief and slight disgust. “You actually drank it like that?”  


“As a kid? Of course. That surprises you?”  


Dorian wrapped both hands around his mug. He hadn’t even noticed how cold his hands had gotten, but now they were warmed to the bone. “Well, yes,” he said, “I didn’t know Qunari children got sweets.”  


Bull snorted. “You thought we didn’t get sweets? Do the Vints raise their kids without them?” He took a sip from his mug and smiled.  


“No… But I just… hm,” Dorian stuttered. It wasn’t that he had spent much time picturing Qunari children, but when he did, sweets were certainly not involved.  


Bull took another sip and hummed. “Yes. Children are children, Dorian. Even those of the Qunari, no matter what they told you.”  


“Well, yes. I know that most of what my countrymen believe about you must be wrong, but still. I always imagined that raising Qunari children would be all about efficiency and discipline.”  


“It is,” Bull agreed, “those are important things for kids to learn. But so is the right place of pleasure and kindness. We don’t live without those, Dorian.”  


Dorian looked down into his mug. “No… So I gather. Gradually.”  


Bull offered no answer, so Dorian decided to try the drink. He took a sip and the flavour bloomed on his tongue, driving all thoughts from his mind for a second. It was stronger than the stuff he remembered, but it was still unmistakably the same thing. The taste was intense and bitter, but warm and friendly too, reminding him sharply of the times he had last tasted it. Days of his youth, not a child anymore, but young enough to need to prove himself, demanding cocoa from the kitchen for the first time. And later, sitting up late in his study, drinking cup after cup of it as it held him awake, drinking it against tiredness and sadness and later, against despair.  


He looked up at Bull, who was drinking his with a similarly introspective expression. He wondered what he associated with the taste and what the days of his childhood had really been like. He tried to picture a little Bull, without horns or scars but with both eyes, swinging a practice weapon maybe, or listening to lectures of the Qun. Had he even done that? He must have, at some point. But also he had gotten sweets, played games maybe and listened to stories. Dorian tried to picture little Bull sitting by the fire with sweet cocoa, giggling about a funny story told by a huge, horned woman with a bare chest and a deep laugh. Looking at Bull now, how he was drinking and smiling, it was easier than Dorian had ever thought it could be.  


“Do you ever wonder,” he said at last, “if there is something you believed your whole life, and everyone you know believes it too, but then it turns out it was wrong the whole time. What do you do?”  


Bull looked up from his mug. “You find the new truth and believe in that. What else is there?”  


“But what if no one tells you it’s wrong, and indeed would be inclined to tell you that you are wrong yourself. If you feel like the only one.”  


Bull leaned forward in his chair and frowned thoughtfully. “You are never the only one, Dorian. That doesn’t happen. What is this about?”  


“Just… I know that I have been lied to. It was always obvious that Tevinter propaganda is full of lies, but they hide lies within lies, and again and again I find new details that were wrong. I began to question everything, but now I still turn around and find new things I never thought to doubt. Things that should have been obvious to me. It’s… disconcerting.”  


Bull hummed in sudden understanding. “Like that Qunari are actually kind to their kids.”  


“Yes. Among other things about you. And things that are not about you. And everything, basically…” Dorian trailed off. This was getting away from him and he didn’t rightly know what he was trying to say anyway. Except maybe that Bull was nothing like what he had expected and that in retrospect his expectations seemed insultingly ignorant. Bull was looking at him with such fondness that Dorian had to look back down into his mug.  


“You can’t know everything,” Bull said after a long pause, “or be right about everything. No one can.”  


Dorian swirled the cocoa around in his mug and watched it. “Not even Koslun?” He asked carefully.  


“Not even he,” Bull said with a smile in his voice, “don’t tell anyone I said that though, I’d never get cocoa again.”  


Dorian chuckled into his mug and took another sip before he finally looked up. Bull had a ring of cocoa in the stubble of his upper lip. It looked utterly ridiculous and Dorian suddenly felt like laughing and crying both at once as the sharpest pang of longing exploded in his chest.  


Above the sudden loss of breath and the thundering of his heart it occurred to him that he had never found a way to tell Bull how unique he was. There was no one like him, and every time Dorian thought he understood there seemed to be new aspects of him opening up. He wanted to learn them all.  


He wanted to know how Bull grew up. He wanted to listen to him talk about his life all night, wanted to hear that voice laugh at stories, grow wistful with memories, moan with lust. He wanted that gaze and that mind on him fully, wanted to stand and sit and lie with him in battle and in taverns and in bed. He wanted. He wanted so hard it was bringing tears to his eyes.  


There was no way around it. No matter how much Dorian squirmed in his mind, no matter how hard he tried to shy away from the thought, no matter how much he tried to shout it down, it remained the truth. The Iron Bull, captain of the Bull’s Chargers mercenary company, late of Seheron and Par Vollen before that, agent of the Ben-Hassrath, bodyguard of inquisitor Eleanne Trevelyan, lover of dragons and procurer of cocoa, had completely and utterly conquered him.


	10. The nesting behaviour of young mages

The next few weeks were uncharacteristically quiet. Eleanne was swamped in politics of the kind that actually involved more talking than poisoned daggers and Bull found himself with a lot of free time. He used it well, training with the chargers, drinking with the inquisition soldiers and generally keeping an eye on things. Not to mention the extensive use of the inquisitors private and enormous bathtub. He had won access to it fair and square over a game of chess, and now that she wasn’t using her chambers much anyway he actually took advantage of it.

After a very long and very welcome bath after training, one of Leliana’s people found the Iron Bull, summoning him to her rookery. Several of the Ben-Hassrath reports had been in a rather inconsiderate code and Leliana was, to put it tactfully, a little miffed. More about the fact that she didn’t have the time to play at cracking them herself, Bull wagered, but he still found himself hunched over the low table for most of the afternoon and evening, translating.

By the time he was done it was already late. He left the paper on Leliana’s desk and was just turning to leave when he caught the shine of a strange light in the corner of his eye, coming from one of the windows. He leaned out of it far enough to see into the courtyard and then stared in surprise. The eerie, blue-green light was coming from the broken roof of his own room and as he watched, the shattered beams and shingles rose together in the beam of light, slowly rearranging and fitting themselves back together again, shimmering in the darkness. He was so engrossed in watching that he barely even noticed Leliana appear beside him, but he did notice her raised eyebrow and half hidden smirk.

“It looks like you won the favor of a mage, Bull,” she remarked with a grin. 

He chuckled and looked down at her. Judging from her expression he supposed she was expecting him to blush. That was a skill he had never quite gotten the hang of, but still the warmth he felt in his chest was spreading out all over him and into his smile. The flickering light was uncanny, but he found that knowing who was making it made it seem a lot more safe and trustworthy, even friendly in a way. It reminded him of Cole, completely unnatural and very dangerous but still too kind to mistrust.

“Damn magic,” he muttered and Leliana laughed.

He bade his leave and made his way towards the tavern. As he exited the main hall the guards were standing and staring up at where the light was still rearranging the pieces of his roof. As he crossed the courtyard it went out of sight, but when he entered the tavern he could hear it, the strange thrum that always made all his little hairs stand on end.

He entered his room to find it brightly lit with candles and magic. Dorian was standing with his back to the door, arms raised with light swirling around his hands and the last pieces of the roof slotting into place. He had evidently not heard Bull come in, because when he closed the door behind him, Dorian jumped and spun around.

He was slightly out of breath and sweating and when he had overcome his initial surprise he actually looked slightly shifty. His eyes wandered to the side, avoiding Bull, who couldn’t help but grin. Dorian looked flustered and caught out, as if he was not supposed to be here. Bull found that among all the places Dorian could be, right here was where he liked to find him.

How familiar Dorian had become to him, that even the magic, the strange lights and sounds and that sharp smell, no longer filled him with apprehension. He wondered when that had happened and how he could have missed the transition. Dorian was neither predictable nor without danger, but Bull found that when it came from him it no longer seemed so foreign. Dorian himself meanwhile was getting more and more flustered. It was funny and endearing and Bull felt another wave of affection swell in his chest as Dorian tried to scowl.

“I repaired your roof,” he said brusquely, waving his hand at the ceiling.

Bull took several steps into the room and then stopped again. Dorian was still frowning, but there was obvious uncertainty underneath. He was sure Dorian was waiting for or expecting something, though he didn’t know what. Bull found the whole situation remarkably unclear.

“I can see that,” he said, “but why?”

Dorian looked surprised. “Why? You have noticed the winter? The snow, the wind, the freezing temperatures?”

“Of course I have. But you didn’t have to do this. Requisition would have taken care of it.”

Dorian hummed thoughtfully, and Bull couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was being studied now. But soon he cleared his expression again and made that waving gesture he always used to swat away his thoughts. Bull found himself smiling at it internally. It looked like Dorian was chasing away flies.

“I just did it because I was bored,” he said, “try not to overthink it.”

Bull found it a little harder to chase away his own flies, coming in the form of that strange, thrumming warmth in his chest again. He liked his new roof, it somehow made the room feel more like a home. Unfortunately, Dorian was catching on to the fact that Bull hadn’t stopped overthinking as instructed. He cocked his hips a little, put on his flirty smile and said, “Also I may remember a certain invitation to this place and I don’t want to freeze something off trying to find my clothes in the middle of the night. Again.”

Bull frowned to himself, then walked over to the bed and sat down with a huff. Dorian had been bored, that much was true. He didn’t want to freeze, that much was also true. He had wanted to be kind, obviously, but he had gone to unnecessary difficulties to do so himself, instead of just ordering requisitions, and was now trying very hard to deflect from that fact.

Bull looked up again to see that smile still on him. He liked to see Dorian’s different smiles, but this one had a decidedly artificial edge to it, making him rather hard to read. When he put his mind to it, Dorian could be downright inscrutable and Bull didn’t like it. No one ever acquired that particular skill under pleasant circumstances. He bent down and started unfastening his brace and boots and then slipping his feet out of both. “Well, then don’t,” he said, swinging his legs up onto the bed and stretching them out before him.

“Don’t what?” Dorian asked.

“Run off in the middle of the night,” Bull said and stretched his arms out invitingly.

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say. Dorian’s smile and entire posture stiffened as his mask slid into place completely. His smile turned predatory and he stalked towards the bed, deliberately swinging his hips.

“But it is not night yet, and I am still wearing all my clothes,” he said with a purr, “so it’s rather early to plan my escape, don’t you think?”

Bull sighed internally, careful not to let it show on his face. He loved Dorian’s smile and hips and they were utterly wasted on this cover. He knew one good way of getting him to stop it, but right now Dorian didn’t seem to be asking for the conquering. Bull didn’t really know what he was asking for, but there were other ways of finding that out, if Dorian didn’t feel like being straightforward. It was alright, he could work with that.

Dorian reached the bed and swung himself on top of Bull fluidly, settling his knees on either side of Bull’s thighs, straddling him. Then he put both hands squarely on his chest and pushed. Bull let himself be shoved back against the headboard and put his hands on Dorian’s hips, resting both thumbs over his hipbones just shy of his groin and stroked gently over the leather straps there. 

“You know that I can always tell when you’re playacting,” he said with a smile.

Dorian’s eyes were hooding slightly as he moved his hands up over Bull’s shoulders and neck. “Do you now?” He asked and let them wander up towards Bull’s ears. Clever boy.

“Yes, I do,” Bull said and Dorian started to run his fingers along the crease behind his ears, making sensation light up inside him, “I can also tell when you are trying to distract me.”

Dorian continued to stroke both ears and leaned down until their mouths were almost touching. “Sex will do that,” he whispered, “it’s distracting. And so am I. I would really like to distract us both some more now.”

“Ok then, distraction it is,” Bull rumbled back and leaned up to close the distance.

Dorian kissed him hungrily, with no trace of submission this time. His tongue was lithe and strong against Bull’s and his lips kept moving with firm pressure and delightful skill. Bull hummed with pleasure into the kiss and tightened his hold on Dorian’s hips. Dorian’s breath stuttered, ever so slightly, and he broke the kiss to trail his lips up the side of Bull’s face towards his right ear while still rubbing behind the other. Bull chuckled and was just about to make a remark when without warning Dorian closed his lips around the tip of the ear and sucked. Sparks of sensation ran down Bull’s spine again like lightening, lighting up all the nerves on the way before striking his cock. It made him jerk and utter one involuntary gasp and moan he couldn’t seem to stop. Dorian groaned in response and Bull could feel the artificial posture melt away, even a tongue came out to play with the tip of the cartilage. Bull felt his ear twitch, ever so slightly. 

Dorian hummed a surprised sound and drew back a little, huffing a hot breath over the ear, making it twitch again.

Dorian chuckled. “I did not know your ears could move, Bull,” he said, close enough that the airflow tickled them and added to the lovely tingling Bull felt spreading out over the right side of his skull.

“They, ah, yes,” he said, stuttering slightly from the pleasure, “we unlearn that in training though, they are too much of a giveaway. I can’t really do much with them anymore.”

Dorian drew back completely and Bull couldn’t help but sigh a little. His mouth had felt really good there and he found he would rather like to have it back. After a second of silence Bull realized that he had almost completely closed his eye without noticing. Opening it again he found Dorian looking down at him with a very serious frown.

“Your ears were a means of expression and they made you lose that?”

Bull chuckled at the little crease that Dorian always got around his nose with that frown, and also his cute indignance on Bull’s behalf.

“Aw, you feel sorry for me?”

Dorian glared at him and drew back further. Bull’s smile fell. Apparently Dorian was taking this more seriously than anticipated.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bull said, “it’s not like humans pick up on the subtleties anyway. To them it just makes us look even more like animals.”

Dorian’s eyes went wide. “Bull-” he said and then stopped himself. He sounded genuinely stricken and it was tugging at Bull’s heart. He hadn’t wanted to make him sad. 

He stroked his hands up and down Dorian’s sides for comfort. “Come now,” he said, “it’s not that serious. They’re still great for being played with. Just saying.”

Dorian huffed a half hearted laugh and leaned forward again. Then he nuzzled into Bull’s ear and nibbled gently on the cartilage, making Bull shiver with the renewed sensation.

“I’m sorry they took that from you,” Dorian murmured, deliberately letting his voice and breath vibrate the ear, “and I’m sorry about our ignorance. I really would have liked to see them move.” He hummed again and pressed little kissed to the outer rim of the ear.

Bull sighed and let the feeling flow through him again, giving off little sparks in his nerves, relaxing his muscles and making his cock harden against Dorian’s backside. Then he gathered his concentration again, just enough to give his ear a little twitch. The effort was well worth it to feel Dorian smile against it.

Now as distractions went Dorian was clearly getting the upper hand so far. Bull counted it a success that he had at least made him lose his artificial flirting act, but still. Going for the ears was playing rather dirty and demanded equal retaliation. With some effort Bull redirected his attention from Dorian’s mouth to his hips that he still held firmly in his grip. He couldn’t feel nearly as much of them as he would like, not with all those straps and buckles in the way, but he could push his thumbs under the leather bands over his groin a little. He rubbed the crease of Dorian’s thighs through the smooth fabric of the trousers, gratified when the light touches made his hips shift and his breath come a little quicker. As Bull continued to rub he also took note of Dorian’s distinct lack of underwear and gave a low chuckle at the scent of arousal he was starting to emit. Dorian was so beautiful to work up, so smooth and easy and quick. It made Bull’s own cock swell even further. 

As he tilted his hips upward to rub against the arse on top of him, Dorian promptly lost coordination in his hands and mouth and fell forward over Bull’s chest with a sudden gasp.

“Oh, there we go,” Bull laughed, wrapping one arm around Dorian’s waist and giving him a playful squeeze, “knew it’d be this easy to distract you.”

Dorian grumbled breathlessly. “Ha, wouldn't you like that,” he said, even as his voice struggled through his increased panting, “we are far from done yet.”

“Oh, that is very right. Sweet challenging boy, all bets are off now,” Bull rumbled and Dorian outright moaned. Then Bull let his fingers wonder around further, worming their way under the straps and stroking the insides of Dorian’s thighs, always careful to avoid his cock, or even putting much pressure on it with the fabric. Dorian pressed his mouth against Bull’s chest, trying to stifle his whimper as he squirmed on the fingers. Just as Bull was delighting over his impending victory though, Dorian growled himself and drew back again, sitting up in Bull’s lap. He looked deliciously flushed over the cheeks, his hair was tousled and he was panting, but the challenge was still there in his eyes and he smiled showing all his teeth even as his cock was twitching between them.

Bull answered Dorian’s smile with a wide one of his own. That smile, that was what he was talking about. No longer calculated, set up or cold, this was his real smile of lust and challenge and it was so beautiful, so raw and dangerous that Bull felt all breath huff out of him at the sight of it. Dorian seemed like he was made of lust in that moment and all of Bull’s muscles tensed at once when he realized that yes, this creature of beauty and temptation really was his. The smile was a real smile, Dorian was here because he wanted to be here and nowhere else, he wanted the Bull to give him all he wanted and needed, he desired-

Bull gasped sharply again, startled from his runaway thoughts by a sharp pang of clear pain where Dorian had taken hold of one of his nipples and squeezed. Both of Bull’s hands tightened on Dorian again as the pleasure of it shot through him almost like that of his ears, but sharper and clearer and spicier from the pain. Bull let his head fall back against the bed as the low, rumbling moan forced it’s way out of his throat almost against his will. It felt so good to just lie there and let Dorian play, it was almost tempting to let him win.

That was just the desire talking though, and after all, he was on a mission here. Dorian expected him to put up a fight, so he was going to give better than he got. Even though that was already providing a challenge. The boy really did know what he was doing when he set his mind to it.

Regaining some of his concentration with some effort, Bull started to work on Dorian’s many buckles in an attempt to get him at least partially naked. It was not an easy task with Dorian becoming increasingly mobile and squirmy. He was keeping his hold on Bull’s nipple with one hand and was making his way across Bull’s chest with his mouth, warm and wet over skin and scars, exploring and humming a low, aroused and most distracting noise. Bull fumbled with the buckles as that sound and the feeling of Dorian’s fingers filled his mind with pleasure and his cock with a growing sense of urgency.

But still he managed to keep enough of his wits around him to deal with at least a part of Dorian’s clothing. He continued to explore and to squirm but by and by he allowed his clothes to be pulled from him piece by piece. Bull’s efforts were slowly revealing more and more of that skin for his hands to stroke over and he had to admit that it was only contributing to his overall distraction.

At last Dorian was completely naked above him, stretches of brown skin shimmering with sweat and moving over his finely cut muscles. Bull looked down over his back and the swell of his arse where it spread out over his lap and it took him a moment to recognize that the deep rumbling sound was actually coming from his own chest. He felt the hot ball of arousal tightening in his gut and he let his eye slide shut against it. Even after he had shut out the sight, the smooth feeling of the soft skin over firm muscles and the scent that grew more and more pronounced the more of it was bared and Bull’s cock was starting to hurt. 

Dorian was slowly travelling down his body now, pausing on his way to undo the clasp of Bull’s harness. Bull shoved the rest of it off of himself and out of bed. When Dorian came down low enough to line up their cocks, Bull thrust upward. Dorian cried out in surprise and sensation just as Bull could feel them slide together deliciously, making them both twitch and gasp. Dorian’s hands and arms were trembling and Bull could tell that he too was only barely holding on.

“Ha,” Bull said, opening his eye again and smirking down at him, “you think you can keep that up boy? How long till you lose it on me now, hm?”

Dorian pressed his face into Bull’s belly and didn’t even try to suppress his moan even as his hands were undoing Bull’s belt.

“I will not-” he started and ended in an almost pained squeak when Bull reached down with both hands and ran his thumbs gently over his cheekbones. Bull just laughed even as he continued to tilt his hips, dragging his cock against Dorian’s chest now.

Dorian did not try to speak again, concentrating fully on getting Bull’s pants off. He had opened the belt, but was now struggling to actually get them down with Bull’s hips still thrusting up against him. After a moment Bull decided to be helpful and shuffled up the bed a little, lifting his hips and letting Dorian drag his pants down. The position also let him lean his head and shoulders against the headboard again, which meant he had a beautiful, full few of Dorian’s face just when he came into close contact with a Qunari cock for the first time.

Dorian had seen and felt it before of course, but now he was close up, his nose mere inches from the tip and Bull could tell from his expression that this made all the difference. The slight shiver in Dorian’s frame revved up into a full on shake in his shoulders as he contemplated his prize and the flush on his cheeks darkened considerably. Then he lets out a long, breathy moan that tingled all the way up Bull’s spine even as Dorian’s hot breath stroked over his exposed head. He only had a second though to savor the feeling as Dorian wetly licked his lips and then gently kissed his tip before drawing him down in one smooth push.

Bull threw his head back and moaned as he entered into the heat and wetness of Dorian’s mouth, even as he tried to keep his eye on the sight of his girth stretching those lips wide. Bull was clearly far too long for him, but Dorian closed his hand around the shaft he couldn’t get in and all Bull could feel now was pressure and heat and the maddening drag of Dorian’s tongue against the underside just as the top of his head slid along the roof of his mouth.

Just as Bull was beginning to lose himself to the feeling, Dorian hollowed out his cheeks and sucked. Bull yelled out to the ceiling as the sudden suction drew on him, making his gut tighten and his balls start to draw up. He just let himself continue to moan as he stroked both thumbs over those cheeks towards his lips, brushing them gently and smoothing down Dorian’s mustache. Then he tilted his hips again, thrusting up gently.

Both of Dorian’s hands tried to leave Bull’s hips, but Bull was quicker. He grabbed his wrists and pinned them against himself, making Dorian cry out around his cock, a defiant sound of desperation and need that made vibrations travel through Bull’s very bones and he tightened his grip. Dorian squirmed and struggled, but he was held fast. Against the pounding in his cock and the fog in his mind Bull still regained enough control of his legs to hook his feet around Dorian’s hips, effectively holding him up and preventing him from rutting against the bed.

Dorian whined, high and pitiful as he squirmed, but he never lost focus on Bull’s cock in his mouth. He continued to suck like his life was depending on it, desperate and famished and rubbing the flat of his tongue against the head hard and fast and without mercy. The hot ball in Bull’s gut was tightening rapidly and he knew he wasn’t going to last. He laid one hand gently on Dorian’s hair. “Dorian…” he huffed, his voice cracking, “keep that up and I won’t be keeping it up much longer.” Dorian chuckled and Bull felt his lips stretch even further into a smile. Then he rolled his tongue and pressed the tip right into the groove below the head and Bull was done.

He gave a great shout as the tightness exploded in him, spreading pleasure rushing through him in repeated bursts, concentrating in his pulsing cock. Dorian lost the suction as Bull’s seed shot into his mouth, but he didn’t draw back as Bull sprayed into him, filling his mouth and spilling over his lips, his seed running back down his cock even as Dorian struggled to swallow it all.

Finally his orgasm subsided, but Bull only gave himself a second to recover. Dorian was still licking at his cock and moaning and Bull could see the tremor in his shoulders and spine was now shaking him through.

Bull sat up as quickly as his groggy sensed would allow, gripped Dorian by the shoulder and waist and flipped him over. His eyes were screwed shut and his entire face was contracted as if in pain. His beautiful flush reached down all the way over his chest and his breath was coming in harsh, labored pants. The muscles in his abdomen were contracting rhythmically, nearly lifting his hips up off the bed. His cock was flushed the darkest shade of red, straining up hard and dribbling precome down the side and jerking with the thrusting of his hips. Bull could see the little spot right below the head pulsing already. Without wasting more time to stare Bull committed the tableau to memory and swallowed Dorian down.

Just as he got his lips fully around the head, Dorian came. He gave a high pitched shout of his own and his seed burst into Bull’s mouth, tangy and bitter and far more of it than expected. Bull slid his mouth down nearly to the base and swallowed as Dorian continued to spurt and Bull needed to hold his hips down to stop him from thrusting up too hard, helpless in his abandon.

At last Dorian’s moans turned into quieter whimpers as his cock softened and Bull drew back to look at him. He looked utterly breathtaking, flushed and panting and in complete disarray and now Bull finally had time to look. 

It didn’t take Dorian long to recover though and he cracked an eye open, squinting up at Bull. Something he saw seemed to register with him and he smiled, broad and real and Bull couldn’t help his answering grin.

“Right,” Bull said, “you stay put, I’ll get us clean again.”

Dorian just hummed and stretched out and Bull got up to get a wet flannel. After he was done wiping them both down he climbed back onto the bed and for a while they just lay there, side to side on their backs, shoulders and arms touching.

After a long silence, Dorian spoke again, his voice husky and cracked. “Hm… I’m surprised you decided to play fair.”

Bull chuckled. “Is that so? But you wanted me too.”

“Well, yes. But how did you know?”

“Let’s just say I had a hunch. I’m good at those.” Bull stretched and reached next to the bed where he found a half full waterskin and offered it to Dorian. 

He took a deep drink of it, wiped his mouth and then lay back again, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully. “And… What I want is very important to you.”

“Yes, it is,” Bull said and rearranged himself on the bed.

“Alright, that is… considerate of you. But what do you want?”

Bull shrugged. “Whatever you want to do is fine by me.”

Dorian huffed in annoyance. “Vishante Kaffas, that is no answer! That is not even a good evasion.”

“Show me, then,” Bull said, a little startled by Dorian’s sudden vehemence, ”tell me what you want, right now.”

Dorian huffed again, more subdued this time, and turned his head away. “What I want to do and what I need to do don’t tend to line up well in times like these.”

“And what do you need to do now?” Bull sat up a little so he could look at Dorian better. His shoulders where shaking again, ever so slightly, but it was not the good kind.

“Leave,” Dorian said, suddenly very quiet, “I need to get up and leave. But it was hard, last time. Harder than it ever should have been. One more good reason to do so again.”

“Huh,” Bull said, a little lost, “I bet that made some sense in that head of yours just there. What happens if you don’t?”

Dorian whipped his head around and stared up at Bull. “What? Are you asking me to stay the night?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“You are asking me to stay the night, like some kind of sleepover domestic arrangement?”

Bull spread his left hand out in a calming gesture. “An arrangement that doesn’t have you steal away in the middle of the night when you can barely stand and are shaking like a leaf. Also I have a roof now, I’m told it makes the room that much more domestic.”

Dorian’s expression softened, as did his voice. “But is this what you want? For me to stay?”

Bull shrugged. He really didn’t get what Dorian was hinting at, and he found that the grogginess in his muscles and the coziness of Dorian’s body against his was working against his capacity to think about it right now. He decided to stop the overthinking train and just said, “Yes. Go to sleep, Dorian,” and closed his eye. Whatever it might mean, it was the truth and that was a problem for another day.

It seemed to have been the correct response this time though. Dorian let out a deep sigh and turned around. Then he moved even closer, moved himself between Bull’s arm and side and draped his own arm over Bull’s chest and a leg over his lap. Bull could feel himself relax completely as they both drifted towards sleep. 

 

 


	11. Shok Ebasit Hissra

The winter was deepening all around Skyhold, and not for the first time Dorian wondered at the magic that must lie on the place. It was not so overt that he could feel it, indeed no one he asked said they could, but the effects were visible everywhere. They were high up in the mountains, well over the treeline, and the snow fell heavy and thick all around them, making the road near impassable around the winter solstice. The snow that fell on the keep though was never more than a light fluff, staying on the ground only for as long as it took the morning to pass and the many passing feet to turn it into sludge. The garden lay quiet and brown, sleeping but not dead, and though the air was clear and cold the winds never quite reached them.

With the Bull Dorian had fallen into a somewhat comfortable rhythm. He still could not rightly say what was actually happening, but every few nights when the yearning grew too great to ignore, Bull would be sitting in the tavern or training in the courtyard and Dorian would seek him out. He would be welcomed, always, with a smile and open arms, and later with strong hands and hot breath and words, wonderful and intoxicating, going to his head worse than the Qunari liquor Bull had somehow gotten his hands on.

Sometimes Bull would know what he needed and sometimes he would ask, and sometimes, very rarely, Dorian would work out something Bull liked so much it made him lose his grip, ever so slightly. Dorian always felt like marking those days with chalk on the walls in his joy. Quieter, more hidden even from himself, he felt like marking the weeks and months of winter that went by and nothing changed. No matter what happened the next day, or the day after that, he knew to treasure what he had, for as long as he could have it. 

There was a sense of quiet peace around, both from the relative mildness of the winter and from Bull himself. Dorian remembered noticing it when they first met, and now sometimes it still caught him by surprise, how the aura of steadiness and assurance could radiate off of him. It could calm everyone around, which was probably a Qunari thing, and Dorian most of all, which was all down to the Bull.

Dorian had asked him about it, one of those nights when they had more cocoa and talk than sex. ‘Shok ebasit hissra’, Bull had taught him, meant ‘struggle is an illusion’.

“Actually, that translation’s a bit wrong,” Bull had said, “it’s more that struggle is a lie. People make struggles where there are none, for themselves and for others. That’s the theory, anyway.”

“You don’t believe it?” Dorian asked and Bull just shrugged.

“No, I believe it. It’s just like all things that are true, they are easier to see in houses over cocoa. Less easy on the field when the lie is making blood run into your eye.”

“Then why believe in it at all?”

“Because, when you have blood running into your eyes it’s easy to think that the whole world is red,” Bull said, and his voice had a strange lilt to it like he was quoting someone else. “My re-educator said that,“ he added, “she sure had a thing for metaphors.”

 

Eventually the days grew longer again, and one morning when the winter had almost passed and the roads had grown passable again, Dorian was making his way over the courtyard, enjoying the warmth of the early sun and idly watching the ravens return to the keep, when he was jarred out of his thoughts by a resounding crash, the sound of shattering wood echoing amongst the high walls, followed by a deep bellow.

“Damnit Krem! I’m working my ass off here trying to get you to see that move!”

Dorian flinched at the tone. Bull was rarely gentle with the chargers, his lieutenant least of all, but there was an underlying note this time of genuine annoyance that Dorian had not heard before.

He walked around the tavern to Bull’s favorite training spot to find them both squaring off with practice shields. Krem’s shield was half in splinters and he looked completely exhausted, even as he quipped back. Bull grumbled and then threw his hands up.

“Gah, just go and get some water,” he said, waving Krem off, who plodded away with a strange side glance to Dorian. It might have been suspicion, he thought, but he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that it was closer to worry. 

Bull propped his shield up against a training dummy and rolled his shoulders. He looked stiff and and tired and he was frowning.

“No fun with training today then, I take it,” Dorian remarked and Bull turned to him.

“I swear the day he sees the move will be the day the sky falls,” he growsed, “again.”

“How difficult can it be to see a Qunari coming at you with a shield?” Dorian asked with a sardonic smile.

“Hah! You should try it some day! Let us see if that staff of yours is any good in a real fight.”

“We could surely spar together, if you want. Even though the fights I engage in are usually more sophisticated than hitting things with a stick.”

“Certainly seems a wasted use of that stick…” Bull trailed off and gave him an exaggerated leer, but Dorian could tell that his heart wasn’t in it even before his smile fell again. He looked at Dorian for a second with an unreadable expression and was just taking a breath to say something when Eleanne came walking up beside them.

“Hey Bull, Dorian!” she called to them with a smile.

“Ah, boss,” Bull said and turned to her, “been meaning to talk to you. My contacts in the Ben-Hassrath wrote. I already verified it with Red. They say they propose an alliance.”

Eleanne raised both eyebrows in surprise. “That is unusual of them.”

Bull huffed. “Heh, yeah. Well, they don’t like Corypheus or his Venatori. And they really don’t like red lyrium. So they want to work with us.” Bull blinked. “With you, boss. They are even throwing in a dreadnought for this operation.”

Eleanne got a slight gleam in her eye and almost bounced on her toes. “Oh, I always wanted to see one of those! What are they offering?”

“They caught wind of a red lyrium shipping operation off the coast. They don’t want to tip off the smugglers, so it’s just the chargers, you, maybe some backup.” Bull threw a glance over to Dorian, who just nodded.

Eleanne gave a thoughtful hum. “Sounds good to me. Set up the operation with Cullen, and we can be on our way.” She gave both of them a little wave and trotted off in the direction of the main hall.

Dorian and Bull remained standing together in silence for a long moment. Bull looked pensive.

“Are you not happy about this?” Dorian asked at last, and Bull shrugged.

“No, no, I’m good. It’s just-” he hesitated for half a breath, “It’s been a while, and I have gotten used to them being over there.”

Dorian could not really put his finger on it, but there was a distinct stiffness to Bull’s shoulders even as they sagged a little when Eleanne had gone. Dorian suppressed the urge to step closer and he almost reached out to touch, but ultimately thought better of it. He was unsure of what was going on in Bull’s head, but he was clearly worried. Dorian wondered if would ever occur to Bull that the Qun could make things more complicated, in some cases. He also couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something vital here.

 

The Stormcoast was, once again, truly living up to its name. The wind from the sea was still cold with early spring chill and it was driving an even colder rain that bit into the skin like needles. They were standing under a cluster of trees in an attempt to evade at least some of the weather, and waited for their contact. Bull was still tense, but less so than on the day in the courtyard. Dorian wondered if he was just hiding it better now, and if he would ever be able to tell the difference. 

Here they were, about to meet with Bull’s people. Dorian turned that phrase over a few times in his mind and looked to the chargers. They were clearly nervous too, and not as good at hiding it. They stood close together, almost touching, and were alternately watching Bull and the surrounding undergrowth. No one here thought that this was about red lyrium.

They waited for a long time, and nothing happened. The rain let up a bit, but that only made Dorian more aware of where it had seeped under the leather to chill his skin. All around them was silence. Just when Dorian was about to think that the whole thing was a bust, an elf seemingly materialized in front of them. He was quite young and a lot broader than usual for his race, and Dorian instantly disliked him. If he had thought that Qunari where all as calm as the Iron Bull, Gatt was certainly the exception that shattered that particular the rule. He did not appear nervous, as such, but there was a certain jerky energy to him, and he was making Dorian draw his shoulders up without knowing why.

“Hissrad!” The elf called out, coming forward.

“Gatt!” Bull exclaimed with a surprised laugh, “did they finally let you out of Seheron?”

The elf grinned, showing too many teeth. “Yes, they apparently agreed I had calmed down enough to be let out into the real world.”

Bull laughed again and Dorian felt his heart sink into his boots like a lead weight. Bull had turned around to Eleanne to introduce them, and Gatt was sizing them all up one by one, not even trying to be subtle about it, but Dorian had stopped paying attention. He could see the tense line of Bull’s shoulders and hear the sharp edge in his laugh as he stood between Gatt and the Inquisitor. The Chargers stood behind them, still staying close and watching the exchange in silence.

Bull was trying to appear relaxed in his banter and the more Gatt smiled at him the more Dorian found himself wanting to yell. This was a mistake. Why were they talking to a creepy elf who called Bull something related to lies, reminded him of Seheron and thought that was funny? If anyone asked him, they should just go get their own ship and keep the Qunari well away from him, from the Inquisition, and from Bull. But no one was asking him, and the conversation was progressing without his input.

“Thank you for meeting with us,” Eleanne was saying in her best diplomat’s voice, “Corypheus threatens all of Thedas.”

Gatt nodded to her slightly. “The Ben-Hassrath agree. Tevinter is bad enough without this Venatori cult.”

Dorian snapped. “And I’m sure life would be so much better for all of us under the Qun,” he said, almost without realizing he had started talking.

Gatt just raised an eyebrow at him. “It was for me. They rescued me from slavery in Tevinter. I was eight.”

Dorian glared. “Ah yes. A life free from all that pesky free will and independent thought.”

Suddenly he found everyone’s eyes on him. Gatt was looking at him in open disgust, but Bull just looked startled. Eleanne’s face was entirely unreadable, staring at him with blank intensity for a second. The words seemed to die in his throat as she turned away from him again. He was still seething, but he also felt exposed and foolish now, and still not entirely sure why he was angry. Eleanne cleared her throat and Gatt raised his hands.

“I’m not here to convert anyone,” he said. “All I care about is that the red lyrium never reaches Minrathous.”

“As do we,” Eleanne said smoothly. “We do apologize. Please, tell us what is happening.”

Gatt nodded to her again and started explaining the operation. Two positions to take, watch the dreadnought do the job and cover its retreat. Not that much of a challenge, though Bull seems to disagree.

“I always hated dreadnought runs,” he says quietly to Eleanne, “too many ways for things to go to shit.”

Things made no immediate move towards catastrophe though. They split up and started fighting their way up the hill towards their position. The encamped Venatori were actually fewer in number than the scouts had reported and offered little effective resistance. The rain had let up for the most part, but there was still a continuous and persistent drizzle that did little but get on Dorian’s nerves. It was still cold and the visibility was not the best, and also Gatt kept side-eyeing him. Overall the whole ordeal was trifling enough to be annoying.

That is, until they had cleared out the crest of the hill and Dorian finally had the chance to look out to sea. The wind was lashing the water into a froth and choppy waves, and the rain was driven in sheets across the water, gray against the gray sky. They stood for a while, squinting out into the bleakness, when suddenly, Bull pointed and they saw the dreadnought approaching.

Dorian had heard of them, of course, but he had never seen one, or ever thought that a mere ship could be so monstrous. It was sleek and black and huge, darkened steel like a cockroaches armor, lying deep and heavy in the water and creeping between the waves, barely rocked by them at all. It looked impossible, like a thing that should not float but still does, and it made Dorian shiver.

After a while they then saw the smuggler’s ship come in, and the dreadnought gave a roar like a dragon, fire and black smoke erupting from its side in a single great burst. The schooner instantly caught fire and the screams of the crew echoed faintly across the water for a few seconds before it sank. 

Bull and Eleanne both gave a small cheer of triumph and Dorian looked around. He could see the Chargers below them, raising their weapons above their heads, but he could not hear them. He was just looking back to the dreadnought again when Eleanne gave a shout and pointed.

Up the other hill, just out of view of the Chargers’ position, a group of figures in black cloaks were making their way up the slope. There were ten of them, at least, and if even most of them were mages the Chargers did not stand a chance. Around the foot of the hill a second group came, slower and marching in ley formation. Dorian knew that move, and he saw it wind up like pincers on a chessboard. If the hill was lost, the formation would gain the beach. If they gained the beach, a spell with such a windup could punch through sheets of steel with ease.

Gatt gave a shout of dismay and leapt for the fire, tearing something from his belt and casting it into the flames. Oily black smoke erupted instantly in thick dark plumes, shooting straight up. From the ship there came the an awful shriek of metal scraping over metal. Dorian saw rows of hatches open along the sides and giant oars were pushed out and dropped into the churning water as one. Slowly, far too slowly, the ship began to turn. 

Dorian looked over to Bull, as did the others. He was standing perfectly still, almost like a statue in the rain, ramrod straight and expressionless, but his fists were clenched so hard his silver skin stretched white across the knuckles. He was not looking at the ship.

Gatt stepped up too close to him. “They need to hold the position,” he said, quietly but urgently.

“If do that, they are dead!” Bull said, his voice flat and scratchy.

“And if they don’t the dreadnought is dead! You would declaring yourself Tal-Vashoth!”

Bull spun around at him and glared, but Gatt did not back down.

“Hissrad, you need to do what is right! For this mission and for the Qun!”

Bull stared at him for a second and then turned around to Eleanne, who was watching the whole scene with growing horror.

“The Iron Bull, save your men!” She exclaimed and Bull sprung into motion instantly and snatched the signaling horn off its post. Gatt stepped up in front of him again.

“I stood up for you, Hissrad!” He almost yelled, close to panic, “I told them you would never become Tal-Vashoth!”

That name again. There had been a feeling of strange unreality in watching the dreadnought turn against the waves, but now the world and their situation came back to Dorian with a rush. This was it.

“Bull…” he said, surprised to find his voice cracking.

Bull did not look at him. He was staring across the valley again, away from them all, and slowly as if lifting a great weight he raised the horn to his lips and blew a deafening blast.

For a second, nothing happened as the sound echoed over the sea. Then the Chargers drew close together and moved quickly off the hill, just in time to remain out of sight as the Venatori gained the rise and turned about, covering the approach of their fellows. They came onto the beach and fanned out. Dorian could feel the veil draw taut about him, even from the distance. The oars of the ship were dipping in unison and it had just aligned out of the bay when the veil snapped and a giant ball of fire sprung out from the beach and collided with the rear of the dreadnought.

There was a short second of awful silence and then there was a crash like thunder and a blinding flash, and they all covered their eyes and ears against it. When Dorian could see again over the sparks dancing in his eyes there was nothing on the waves but a stinging smoke that rolled like heavy liquid over the water. The ship was gone.

When they had all rubbed their eyes and looked about, Gatt was gone as well. The Venatori were retreating from the shore and they would need to move if they didn’t want to fight the formation. No one suggested that they try. Dorian was sure that Eleanne would send in the army next to scour the whole countryside. He felt tired and numb suddenly. He wanted to go over to Bull and say something, but he was not looking at anyone, so he just settled on walking close to him as they made their way inland to rejoin the Chargers. 

They found them all in one piece, thankfully, but they took one look at Bull and their expressions fell in such unison, it was almost comical. He walked over to them slowly and Eleanne held Dorian back from following him, giving them some space. Bull spoke quietly to them and Dorian could not make out the words.

Soon they were all on horseback again and on their way back to Skyhold. Eleanne indeed sent word out for soldiers to comb the beach for the remaining Venatori, but she was taking the Chargers home, riding at a slow pace through the worsening rain.

Seeing Bull off kilter, even for a second, felt like seeing the ground sliding. Dorian had never quite considered the possibility. But then again, he had also never considered this mission going bad this completely. Even after several hours riding he almost thought he could still smell the biting smoke from the burning ship. It was making him feel a bit sick. He remembered wondering what things might be like if Bull was Tal-Vashoth, and what that would mean for them, and that was making him feel really sick. Of all the selfish thoughts of all his selfish life, that was the one he wished he could take back the most, and stop thinking.

For once even the boisterous Chargers remained subdued and quiet for a long time, riding close to their captain in silence while Eleanne lead the troupe and Dorian followed it. He couldn’t think of a single thing so say either, and so he was alone with his thoughts for most of the ride.

The thing was, the longer he thought about it, the less the entire situation actually made sense. What a coincidence it was that just as the Ben-Hassrath had apparently been discussing Bull’s loyalty, such an opportunity had presented itself to test it. It was all so  _ specific . _ Bull’s soldiers against the Qun’s. Certain death for one or the other. Things like that didn’t just happen.

The entire road back was freezing and uncomfortable. The rain had soaked right through all of his layers and try as he might, Dorian couldn’t seem to get dry. He went to bed early when they made camp, but Bull stayed up late by the fire, turning in only when Dorian was already half asleep, and by the time he woke he was already alone again. The Chargers started chatting again by the second day, and they tried their best to involve Bull, but he only listened and nodded along to the wild stories they told. 

Dorian was immensely glad when they finally arrived back in Skyhold. He immediately commandeered the biggest tub in the bathhouse and proceeded to soak in it for longer than was probably healthy. This part he could get used to, actually. Coming home from a long trek through interminable nature and just pamper himself as hard as the southern amenities would allow. He barely even startled when he caught himself thinking ‘home’ anymore. It was probably not technically true, or could be true forever, but if there was anything he had learned on his travels it was that the concept of home was, in fact, portable.

When he was finally done with getting himself presentable again he went in search of the Iron Bull. He still didn’t know what to say to him, or really how to approach any subject with him at all now, but he found that he actually wanted to be around, for… well, for whatever case might arise.

He found him too, easily enough, in the tavern, surrounded by his company. They were drinking of course, and had apparently progressed quite well in the endeavor, but Bull was no longer quiet. In fact, he was laughing and shouting and singing along as loud and as raucously as any of them. Dorian couldn’t help but smile. 

He could never have pictured it, less than a year ago, that he would one day sit in a tavern and listen to the increasingly drunk and ridiculous antics of a mercenary band and be smiling, but here he was. Here they all were.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, here it is. I am so sorry it took so long, but work and life have been mad crazy the last few weeks. Not in a bad way, but I just didn’t get as much writing time in as I would have liked.
> 
> Also I took some liberties with the original quest, because as thematically resonant as it is, it doesn’t make a lick of sense logistically. So thank you for bearing with my extraneous headcanons on the matter.  
> But the Qunari dreadnoughts are badass, so there’s that.
> 
> And as always, thank you all so much for your support and kind words about this work. I can never look at the feedback for this without the goofiest smile. Ya’ll always make my day.


	12. By the cold light of morning

The following days were very busy for Dorian. The mages had found an entire library under the keep, previously blocked off by rubble, and their distrustful frowns had in no way kept him from helping them sort through the discovered tomes. They were very old and suffocating in dust, of the kind that stuck and clung to hair and clothes and turned the bathwater gray. Giant cobwebs spanned the shelves, far bigger than the tiny little spiders they found could ever account for.

The books were unsorted, stacked and shelved haphazardly. Books about gardening rubbed shoulders with those about ancient chantry history, about fade magic and elf lore, books written in every language Dorian recognized, save two; Tevene and Qunlat. Dorian spent four days with a cloth tied over mouth and nose and happily buried by avalanches of paper and ancient ink.

On the fifth day he was walking the courtyard for some fresh air, early in the morning as the first rays of dawn were making the air clear and bright, when he heard shouting from across the keep, followed by a drawn out shriek. He broke into a run towards the commotion, but by the time he had crossed the courtyard and sprinted up the steps to the high battlements, it was already over. Bull and Eleanne were standing together over the dead body of an elf and several soldiers had come up as well, though they were keeping their distance. 

Eleanne was looking slightly frazzled, hair tied up in a messy bun and frowning. Bull was breathing a little heavier and he had a shallow but long gash from his right shoulder to his chest. His expression was dark. They were talking and Dorian approached until he was close enough to hear.

“I can’t believe that Gatt would actually exile you,” Eleanne was saying. “Or the Qun, for that matter. I’m so sorry, Bull.”

“The Qun did not exile me, or demand that I leave,” Bull explained in a flat voice. He looked pensive and distracted and the wound was bleeding sluggishly. “It demanded the lives of my soldiers, I refused. That is what makes me Tal-Vashoth, not any decision Gatt could make. He was just pointing out the facts.”

“But they actually sent people to kill you!” Eleanne exclaimed, gesturing to the body on the ground. Bull shook his head slowly and huffed, almost a sigh.

“No. They sent people for me to kill. You see the difference? My decision is not in doubt. Now they are just demonstrating what it means.”

Eleanne nodded dumbly and then noticed Dorian, standing awkwardly nearby without a clue of what to say. “Hello,” she said and nodded to him, “I’ll just… leave you to it.”

She gestured to the soldiers to follow and was already almost on the steps when Bull called to her.

“Boss?”

She turned around to him again and he said quietly, “I just want you to know. Whatever happened, whatever I regret, here is where I want to be.”

Eleanne smiled and gave an oddly formal little bow. “Thank you, the Iron Bull,” she said simply and then turned away again to make her way down the steps, followed by her soldiers.

Dorian came closer and Bull’s shoulders sagged.

“Ah, Dorian,” he said, “you missed an elf taking a nosedive down a mountain just now.”

He was joking, Dorian thought, but there was no humor in his voice and he was not smiling. Dorian’s heart clenched and he sighed. Then he took out a clean handkerchief from his pocket and stepped up to press it against Bull’s wound, who hissed slightly at the contact.

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, “don’t look at me like that.”

Dorian tried to smooth his own frown again, with limited success. “Are you sure the blade was not poisoned then? It is what I would have done in their place.”

Bull huffed half a laugh. “Yeah, so would they. Saar-qamek is the nasty shit, if you don’t happen to see it coming.”

Dorian took the handkerchief away again and inspected the wound. It looked clean enough he supposed, but then again he really was no healer. The wound was not the worst thing though. Bull had known they would come and that knowledge hurt. Dorian knew that Bull rarely if ever let his guard down, but to see that be necessary, even within Skyhold, was another matter entirely.

“Will this happen more often then?” He asked, trying to keep his voice steady, “will you always need to watch for them?”

Bull took the handkerchief from Dorian and pressed it against his own shoulder as Dorian drew back a little. It made meeting Bull’s eye easier. Bull shook his head again.

“No, probably not. Those men are not what I need to be watching for now, believe me. They are not what you should be watching for, either.”

Dorian came up short. Trust Bull to not be overly concerned by having an attempt on his life, but still he obviously was very concerned all the same. He was still frowning and actually seemed nervous.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Dorian asked, unsettled by Bull’s uncharacteristic worry.

He was just about to get an answer when two soldiers came up with a stretcher. They nodded to both of them, hands too full to salute, and went about clearing out the body. Dorian wrinkled his nose and started walking away, making sure Bull followed. When they had gotten out of sight and behind a part of the parapet that shielded them from the wind, Dorian stopped again and turned around. Bull had his left hand halfway up towards him, as if he didn’t know if he wanted to reach out and his expression was so unsure Dorian didn’t even know what to do. By the time he considered taking Bull’s hand, it had already been lowered again.

“Dorian… Do you trust me?” Bull asked suddenly and in a rush.

“Yes,” Dorian said at once, without really thinking. Then he paused a while for emphasis and added, “I find that I do.”

He almost felt like it had been the wrong answer. Bull’s slight sag of the shoulders disappeared and he drew himself up straight again. Standing so close, Dorian needed to look almost straight up at him.

“You shouldn’t,” Bull said, voice deep and rumbling, “this is not- I’m not- You should be more careful. I could hurt you.” The way he said it, it almost sounded dangerous, but his voice cracked slightly on the last syllable and all Dorian could feel was that aching, consuming affection he wished he could ignore better.

“Hurt me? Why would you do that?” He asked, careful not to step back. Bull drew back a pace himself instead and half turned away, speaking to the parapet.

“Because, I… The Qun answers a lot of questions, and it gives you rules to live by. I have seen what becomes of those who grew up with those rules and then lost their hold on them… It’s not pretty.”

“You mean to tell me that you actually kept to the Qun? All this time? I remember that you really weren’t thrilled about the prospect of seeing them again.”

“Well, no. They kept their distance, see? But they, it, was still out there, and it kept to me. Kept me from going savage. Going mad. Hurting those I care about.” 

Dorian felt anger flare up inside him with unexpected intensity.

“Vishante Kaffas!” He exclaimed, startling Bull’s eye wide, “You are a good man, Bull! You were a good man under the Qun and you are a good man without it!”

He also wanted to add ‘fuck the Qun’ with all the vehemence he felt, but he bit his tongue. Bull was still looking very surprised and Dorian tried to tone himself down a little, continuing in a gentler voice.

“Those rules you follow? You follow them because you believe they are right. That has not stopped being true.”

Bull did not answer and Dorian, following a sudden impulse, stepped up to him again. Then he raised his hand and placed it gently on Bull’s huge arm. The muscle was tense under his touch and the skin was smooth and warm as always. He spread his fingers to stroke across it.

“Bull,” he said quietly but insistently, “you are not savage, and I am not afraid of you.”

Bull turned around to him fully and Dorian craned his neck to try and read his expression, but before he could really register what he saw he found two great arms wrapped around him, drawing him against Bull’s massive chest. The touch of his arms and hands was light and careful, almost as is he was handling glass and it made Dorian’s eyes sting. One of Bull’s hands wrapped around his shoulder and the other covered the side of his face, just holding him gently as if in comfort.

Bull’s hand on his head was huge and covering as always, but for the first time it occurred to Dorian to wonder what that must feel like for Bull himself, holding someone so much smaller that he could almost encompass half his head with one hand. Bull leaned down and buried his nose in Dorian’s hair, his breath hot against his scalp.

It felt comforting and safe, being held like this, though the touch was so very light. Dorian thought about all the times Bull had gripped him tight, even rough, how his strength had sung through Dorian’s body so many nights and how he had felt the bruises bloom in his skin the next morning. How he had treasured them and how the Bull had smiled at them. After a long while of standing like that in silence, Dorian found his voice again.

“Bull, you know that I am not that easily hurt.” 

Bull did not answer, but his breath stuttered.

“Besides, you might find that there actually are a few ways for me to match your strength. Maybe I should demonstrate that fact to you some day.” He let a slight lilt of flirting creep into his voice, joking but gentle.

“Is that a challenge?” Bull whispered against him with a weak chuckle, “that sure sounded like a challenge.”

Dorian smiled against him, remembering the last time he had said that. “If you want it to be, yes. It’s whatever you want it to be.”

Bull’s breath huffed into his hair in a gust of laughter. “That’s my line, you know.”

Dorian chuckled too. “It doesn’t have to be.”

They fell silent again, and Bull started stroking his other hand up and down Dorian’s back. He almost laughed at the absurdity of being comforted now, but he stopped himself just in time. He found that it was actually very like Bull to do this, though he didn’t know what to make of that fact.

Bull then started humming under his breath. The melody sounded strange to Dorian, following a mode he had never heard before, but it was still calming. He closed his eyes, and after a while he could hear words, so quiet and under the hum that he nearly missed them.

“But what do I do now?” Bull whispered, “what do I follow, or live by?”

Dorian whispered back. “You do what you have already been doing. You lead the Chargers and you follow Eleanne. And you live by what is in your heart.”

Bull’s breath stuttered and stopped for a second. “I don’t know what I will find in there when I do that.”

“That is why you have us. And me.”

Dorian leaned back again to look up at Bull, easily let go by the light grip of his hands, though he didn’t move far. Bull’s face was still so close that Dorian could feel his breath and see the wetness in his eye, and on a sudden irresistible impulse, he leaned up for a kiss.

Bull met him half way, and his lips were as light and gentle as his hands, keeping the kiss chaste and careful. Dorian could still feel the restraint and trembling control behind it. It felt wonderful as always, but still Dorian kept himself from deepening the kiss himself or even applying more pressure. Bull was asking, here, more than he had ever asked before.

When they finally broke apart again they continued to stare at each other for a long time. There was that look in Bull’s face again, that amazing, complicated look. But it was also sad now, and worried, and full of heartache and any selfish thoughts Dorian might have had in that moment would just have to wait.

Together they sat down against the outer parapet, leaned against the cool stone side by side. Bull looked up at the sky and Dorian continued to study him.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” He asked at last.

Bull hesitated. He drew breath to speak several times before he looked away from Dorian, up at the sky and then down at his hands. It would have been amusing at any other time, seeing Bull actually act bashful.

“There is… maybe,” Bull said, “you said that I would not hurt you, that you can be stronger than me. Can you… show me?”

Dorian smiled at him and nodded, ideas already forming in his head. He would need to get some practice in again beforehand, but he was quite confident he could make it work. If he had understood correctly, that is.

“Just so we are clear though,” he said, “we are talking about magic and you are asking for this in the context of sex, yes?”

Bull grinned at him, showing his teeth. His eye was still quiet and sad, but Dorian liked to see that smile again. It was the same smile he wore when he wanted to look dangerous in bed, but now it was different. He did not want to be the dangerous one, not anymore.

“You could show me in the training court if you’d like. It’s more fun in bed though. Tends to be easier on the back.” Bull’s smile fell a little and he fixed Dorian with an intense look of contemplation. “Also, well… you know. I trust you too.” He trailed off into silence.

Dorian was aware that he was walking on very fine ice here, over a lake he had never thought to measure the depth of. But Bull was asking. It was unexpected to say the least, but as he looked at Bull, sitting hunched over against the battlements now like he wanted to appear smaller than he was, all his mass and power, bulging muscles and dangerous horns, Dorian found he could actually see it. Someone who was used to people being afraid of him and was sick to his bones of it. Someone so strong that all he feared was what that strength might do, and wanted to be free of it, for once.

Dorian could work with that.

 


	13. An object in motion stays in motion...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is another two part thing, as seen by the ellipses in the title (a signifier I just made up). I like two-parters. They mean I can write and post porn at the same time :)
> 
> Also, just a note on Bull’s room: Interested readers will note that it is a bit different than the room we see Bull in with the Inquisitor. Why? I don’t like that room is why. So now he lives in basically the same spot in a room I made up. Think of it as a ‘Bull has a decent room’ AU.
> 
> Also, are my chapter titles getting sillier? I do believe they are.

The next few days following the incident on the battlements were very quiet. Eleanne was out and about with Blackwall, Vivienne and Sera now, and while Bull was sure that this would be a very amusing combination he was also glad to have some time. It was good to get used to some things by just spending time with them.

It was still early in the evening and Bull was sitting in his wooden chair by the fire, mending loose stitching on his harness. It was already getting dark outside, the days still short in the early year, and the last rays of the sun were filtering through the room’s curtains. Dorian had put them there, as Bull did not really have an interest in interior decoration. They were a light purple shade and reached all the way down to the floor over the two windows in the outer wall of the room.

Bull made quips every time Dorian came in with some new addition to the furniture and decoration, but he did really like the curtains. They were pretty. The other three walls were still showing their naked wood and stone, broken up only by the fireplace in one and the bed and dresser against the other, and Dorian had already been eyeing different kinds of possible drapes. Bull had laughed at him, but he knew that he would probably like those too. Just like the curtains. And the new chairs. And the bedspread from Dorian’s room. And the mirror on the dresser, acquired from a passing merchant. And the books in the corner Bull was going to make shelves for. And the fixed roof.

Bull had never had a room like this. In the past he had lived in barracks, in tents, in drafty rooms of broken houses, or sometimes just under trees and rocks. Neither the Qun nor life as a mercenary really prioritized soft living. He had never minded, as long as his space was clean and tidy he would sleep anywhere, but as Dorian liked to point out, it’s not always about need. It doesn’t have to be. Sometimes wanting things is enough. 

Bull was still wrapping his head around the concept, but Dorian had smiled when Bull had told him he liked dawnstone pink and had bought the curtains in the closest shade he could find, from the first cloth merchant to come to Skyhold after the winter. Bull was quite certain that Dorian did not like pink all that much, but that he was still happy with the curtains. He liked it when Bull wanted things and Bull would do his best to do that, when he could.

He had just finished fixing up the stitching and got up to get the leather oil from the dresser when the low, pervasive murmur of the half empty tavern below suddenly fell silent. Bull tensed up and listened. After a few moments he heard footsteps coming up the stairs towards his door. He recognized Dorian’s tread at once, but it was somewhat different this time, heavier and accompanied by the distinct ‘click’ of his staff hitting the ground as he walked. Bull abandoned the dresser and took a few steps back from the door. Dorian had promised him something and Bull trusted that he would do whatever he was planning in a suitably dramatic way. He already felt his pulse speed up and smiled. This was going to be good.

No sooner had Bull reached some distance and turned back to the door when it flew open so hard it nearly bounced off the wall and Dorian strode into the room. Bull stopped breathing and stared.

Dorian was wearing a floor length robe, midnight black with gold stitching around the seams and in slender, curling patterns across the fabric. It was cut tight across his torso, but open in the front from his clavicle down over his navel to the beginning of his pleasure trail. It flared out wide about his legs and had a high-winged collar that nearly reached his cheekbones. He wore elaborate makeup of black and gold around his eyes, and his cheeks and brow arches were glittering with gold dust that also lay in the hollows of this throat and below his breastbone. The robe was sleeveless and Dorian’s arms were bare down to the elbow, where he wore long fingerless gloves of supple black leather. In his right hand he was carrying his staff of black wood that looked like two serpents winding around each other up to the head where they met and one devoured the other.

Dorian was standing straight and proud, wearing an expression of arrogance and authority Bull had never before seen on him. He looked every inch the magister, self-assured, dangerous, completely used to being obeyed. His mouth was twisted into a smirk, but his eyes were alight with the promise of a fight. He looked Bull up and down slowly, assessing, and his smirk curled up further.

He was acting, Bull knew, but for once he found none of the usual unease he felt when Dorian did that. This was different somehow from his usual bluster and prickliness. This was not hiding, this was playing. It was as mesmerizing as his appearance and Bull could feel his entire body wake to it.

Dorian paused slightly when Bull would not stop staring at him. Hesitation flickered over his face for a split second until Bull let his own smile widen into a grin. All uncertainty fell from Dorian again and he grinned back, showing more teeth than Bull had ever seen on him and his eyes were flashing.  _ Predator , _ Bull’s mind supplied helpfully. But only a small one and Bull knew that those arms, as shapely as they were, were no match for his own and that those perfect white teeth could not even pierce his hide. If they were playing predator and prey here, Bull would come out on top.

A sudden surge went through him, hot and sharp in his chest and his groin, the image and the urge to overthrow the arrogant little mage. How delicious Dorian would look with those robes in tatters, how beautifully he would fall from his act and start begging as soon as Bull had him pinned.

Bull stepped forward with a threatening growl and his own teeth bared in the way he knew Dorian had a hard time resisting. Indeed on the first step Bull took he saw an urgent shudder running through Dorian’s frame. On the second step Dorian threw out his left hand. Bull braced instinctively, but all he felt was the cool prickle of a barrier laying itself over his skin. He stopped short in confusion for a brief moment before Dorian swept his staff over to the left. Nothing happened. Bull made another step forward, Dorian swung the staff back to the right and Bull went flying.

He felt it like a gust of force to his entire body, driving the breath from his lungs and taking his feet off the ground before he barreled hard into the wall with a resounding crash. He could not feel the wood through the barrier, but he did feel the pressure from the spell against his entire front, pressing him into the wood paneling hard, covering every inch of his skin, constricting his chest and pinning all his limbs. His feet no longer touched the ground and he could not move. He tried to tug his arms farward but they would not budge. The coolness from the barrier was slowly wearing off and he could feel his skin heat up again as arousal started to course through him with unexpected intensity. He was pinned, actually pinned to a wall and he could not move. Whatever he tried to do now, it was very possible that he would just not be able to do it.

Bull noticed that he had closed his eye, and slowly he opened it again to look at Dorian. He was standing there with his hips cocked and his staff still outstretched, pinning Bull to the wall above him with his feet well off the ground. He was still wearing the grin that Bull was quickly finding both arousing and insufferable in equal measure.

“Veto,” Dorian said, decidedly smug, “is your watchword. Say it.”

Bull huffed a laugh even as the warmth in his chest and groin continued to spread. “Veto,” he said obediently and Dorian gave him a condescending smile.

“Very good.” 

Dorian took a step closer and Bull felt the pressing force all over him increase. His cock was starting to grow hard now and he tried rolling his hips against it. There was no texture or real friction, but the pressure increased and it felt good, making more of his blood gather there. He tried rolling his hips harder but found that he could not really move them. Then he tried bracing his arse and his elbows against the wall and threw his strength into a real push. He could feel the force give, ever so slightly, molding itself around him, but still it held him in place. It was soft enough that he could not bruise himself against it, but he would not actually get it to budge.

The warmth of that knowledge was slowly spreading through him now. It was making his cock twitch and throb, but it was also laying itself across his mind like a gentle hand of comfort. ‘He has you’, it seemed to say, ‘you can do no wrong as long as he has you.’ Dorian did indeed seem to have him. 

“Oh no, we are not doing any of that wrestling nonsense,” He was saying almost gently when Bull tried to strain against the force again.

“Well that is hardly fair,” Bull quipped back, but somewhat breathlessly which only made Dorian laugh even more.

“Fair? Well we are not doing fair now, are we? No. We are doing winning and losing, and the former rarely goes to  _ fair _ _._ ”

Bull decided to give it another try. He took a deep breath and held it. Then he concentrated all the force in his body and with a great roar he released his breath and his coiled strength, powering forward with everything he had. He felt the wall behind him shudder and he heard Dorian gasp and give the tiniest little moan, but nothing would not move.

The more Bull struggled, the quieter his thoughts became, the more muted and distant all the world seemed. He could feel only the wall behind him and the force before him, and only Dorian really mattered now, closer to him than his own mind. Safer than his own hands, holding him in protection from himself. Arousal was pounding through him like a heartbeat now, throbbing in his cock and making his entire pelvis contract with it, but he could also feel it in his bones, in his head and in his heart. The arousal was as encompassing as the pushing force, touching him everywhere. Dorian’s voice was still floating through the room towards him and he anchored himself back to it a little, letting everything become more real again. 

“Kinetics has never been my primary field of study, if you must know,” he was explaining, “but I happen to be quite adept at it, if I do say so myself. Enough in any case to fix roofs and keep people in their place. You know, whatever need might arise.”

Dorian sounded breathless now himself and Bull could smell his arousal even through all his muted senses, but he was still trying to sound casual. Bull felt himself smiling at that. He felt far, far gone but there was something about it that was just too funny and lovely.

He opened his eye once again and let Dorian come back into focus before him. He was smiling too, brilliantly and with an expression of adoration that made Bull’s blood sing even stronger. He came back a little more, just to take in Dorian’s expression completely. 

He noted now that Dorian had started sweating a little and that the hand holding the staff was ever so slightly trembling. There was a part of Bull that would always need to catalog that information, he feared, but for now he could at least ignore it, even if he could not shut it up.

“So,” Bull tried to say, only to find that his choice was little more than a husky whisper. He cleared his throat and tried again. “What now, mage?”

Dorian beamed with delight and closed the distance between them. Bull was still fixed to the wall but he could feel the pressure lessen somewhat as Dorian reached out with his left hand and ran it gently over Bull’s chest. His skin was warm and fragrant from arousal and the connection between them made something spark in Bull.

“Ah yes,” Dorian said, “whatever will I do with you?”

Bull tried chuckling a little. “Whatever you want, I’d expect.”

“Hm, funny you should say that. Of course we are doing what I want, isn’t that what we always do? But I do wonder. What if we did what you wanted to do for a change?”

Dorian kept stroking down Bull’s chest and side, occasionally running his thumb over a nipple or following a scar with his fingertips. Bull just let himself give a low quiet moan at the sensation, but did not answer. He might have wanted to think about that, but his thoughts were eluding him and he had little motivation to chase them. Dorian’s power felt so good right now.

“See, you always like it so much when I beg. I think you might be onto something there, and I’d like to try it. So here is what I want today: I want you to tell me what you want me to do. Then I want you to beg me for it. How does that sound?”

Bull’s head started spinning. He was locked in place, both by the spell and by that look in Dorian’s eyes, and his mind was completely silent. There was no noise in him, no thought, neither of what he wanted and of what he did not and he did not know what to say. Dorian was still looking at him like that and Bull knew he should ask for something, but all he could think of was silence. He did not know. He struggled to think of something, come up with anything, but all he drew were blanks and he shook his head, suddenly distressed. He could not find a single thought now and for a second he felt a panic rise in him, he could not think-

“The Iron Bull!” Dorian called out in a clear voice and with a snap Bull found his way back to it, and to Dorian’s hand suddenly on his cheek.

“Oh Bull,” Dorian said gently, his tone cool and calming, “It’s alright. Maybe we should start a little smaller, yes?”

Bull sighed and nodded. He was not sure why the concept of asking Dorian for something was so hard all of a sudden. It’s not like he had never been on the other end of the begging game before, with other partners. It was just that now it felt sort of weighty and serious and he could not think of a single thing in his empty mind.

“I’m letting you down shortly,” Dorian said, “and when I do that I want you to do the first thing that comes to mind. Can you do that?”

Bull nodded again, not trusting his words. He had no idea what he wanted to do. Slowly he felt the force around him lessen and he sagged down the wall to his feet. He took a second, shifting his weight a little, flexing his shoulders and arms out of their stiffness. Then he looked at Dorian again, who seemed to have forgotten most of his act and was just looking at him with a fond smile now. Before Bull knew what he was doing he dropped down on both knees.

Dorian gave a little gasp, the most endearing thing, and Bull looked up to see that his smile had transformed into a rather slack look of wonder and a slow fire had started up in his eyes. Bull smiled.

“Like this, do you?” He asked.

Dorian just nodded dumbly. Bull chuckled and gestured for him to come closer. Dorian took a few steps forward until he was standing right before him and Bull took a deep breath. The scent was intoxicating, both the faint lavender perfume and the clearer smell of arousal all about him, but concentrated in the region below the front split of his robe, which was now directly under Bull’s nose. This was a good place to be.

Bull reached out with both hands and placed them on Dorian’s hips. The fabric there was heavy and smooth, and the body underneath so supple and warm. Keeping a hold of him Bull leaned forward and pressed his nose against the exposed skin around his navel, took another deep breath and let it out with a sigh, deliberately blowing over the soft hairs that started there. Dorian trembled.

“Bull…” he whispered.

Bull smiled and started pressing gentle kisses to the exposed skin and running his hands over Dorian’s hips through the cloth, his fingers tracing the dips and curves inward to where his cock was tenting the heavy fabric. 

Dorian sighed happily and put both his hands on top of Bull’s head between his horns and then ran them outward, stroking the skin at both roots, his fingers exploring the craggy transition of skin to horn. Bull liked having his horns stroked there, it felt good, and it also felt good to imagine Dorian gripping him harder, holding him in place and thrusting into his mouth. He might just ask for that, some time. On his right horn Dorian’s fingers caught on the leather strap that held his eye patch and ran them along it for a little while as Bull continued to nuzzle into his groin.

“Can I take this off?” he asked, in a sudden rush.

Bull drew back a little, looked up and studies his expression. “Are you sure?”

Dorian nodded, suddenly decisive. “Yes. Completely.”

Bull hummed and nodded. It wasn’t that he was shy about it, exactly, he just knew that it wasn’t pretty and few people liked seeing it. It mostly made them wince and look away. He found he really did not want Dorian looking away from him.

Dorian fumbled a little with the stiff knot, but at last he got it open and drew the patch back carefully. Bull just held still and waited for the reaction. Dorian did wince, slightly, but he did not look away. Instead he ran his thumb over the scarred ridge of the eyebrow, light and gentle enough to tickle. He had a look of sympathetic pain in his eyes, but no revulsion. Only a tenderness that was closing around Bull’s heart and making it pang and swell.

“Does it still hurt?” Dorian asked quietly and Bull shook his head.

“No. Well, sometimes. Not now.”

Dorian stroked over the lower ridge once and then returned his hands back to Bull’s horns, unimpeded now by the leather strap. Bull’s heart was pounding in his ears like thunder and he barely stopped himself from saying something foolish. 

To keep his mouth occupied better he bent down to press a firm kiss to the prominent bulge before him and Dorian moaned. Then Bull mouthed along the length of it, enjoying Dorian’s little shudders and how the robe itself was clearly the only fabric in the way.

“No silky underthings, huh?” Bull whispered against it.

“Ex… ah, Expediting matters,” Dorian stuttered.

“Oh yes,” Bull said, “let’s expedite a little more, shall we?”

Dorian gave another little moan and pressed his hips forward. Bull ran his hands up the seams of the front split, dipping his thumbs underneath to stroke over the bare skin. Then he rose up on one knee and stroked higher until he reached Dorian’s shoulders. Getting closer to Dorian’s face he saw how blown his pupils were and how hard he was breathing by now.

“You are beautiful,” he whispered on impulse and then pushed the collar of the robe out and over Dorian’s shoulders. It was not quite as easy as he had imagined, the fabric being stiff and very tight, but with some effort on his part and some breathless wriggling from Dorian, at last he managed to push and pull it down his body until at last it lay in a crumpled ring around his feet.

He was wearing knee-high laced black leather boots and he also still had his gloves on, but apart from that he was completely naked now, goosebumps rising over his arms and legs and his erection straining forward and already leaking. It was strange, having him only wear clothes on his hands and feet, but Bull discovered that he found the sight to be very arousing indeed.

He smiled and hummed and leaned forward again to kiss the leaking cock and Dorian whimpered as his grip tightened on Bull’s horns. Bull put one hand back on Dorian’s hip to hold him in place and another around the root of his cock. He blew on it, teasingly, and Dorian whimpered again in protest. Bull was sure he was just about to start really protesting when he opened his mouth and licked a long stripe from the root to the tip, twirled his tongue firmly around the head and then drew it in as far as it would go. It tasted faintly of salt and soap until Bull gave his first firm suck and the precome really started to flow into his mouth. Dorian groaned Bull’s name out loud and leaned forward, his grip tightening on his horns even more. Bull continued to suck, gently at first and then getting firmer, and pressed his tongue up to trap Dorian between it and the ridged roof of his mouth.

Dorian gave a long, drawn out moan and started to rock forward unconsciously and Bull used the hand on his hip to encourage his movement as he bobbed up and down himself, making Dorian’s cock slide smoothly in and out of his mouth. He hummed around it and rubbed his tongue against the underside hard until Dorian whimpered first and then gave a helpless little cry and really started to thrust. 

Bull continued to rub and to hum and held himself so that Dorian could not choke him but was free to fuck into him, rubbing his head across the roof of Bull’s mouth and clinging to his horns for dear life as his cries rose up in volume and in pitch.

It did not take long at all. Dorian scrambled weakly at Bull’s horns in warning and gave one final drawn out moan of his name. Bull just sucked harder for two strokes and Dorian cried out above as salty fluid exploded into Bull’s mouth in several spurts and Dorian’s entire body shook with it. Bull’s cock throbbed painfully in sympathy and he could already feel his own precome drench through his pants. He swallowed Dorian’s seed down and held onto his hips tight to keep from touching himself, clenched the muscles in his own pelvis to keep from trying to rub off against his pants. Orgasm was coiling tightly in his own gut already, it would not take much.

After long seconds Dorian finished, panting and shaking, and he drew his hips back and Bull relinquished his softening cock. His legs still kept trembling and he had to lean heavily on Bull’s horns to keep himself upright as he panted through his aftershocks. Bull felt his own need recede somewhat once Dorian came down again, and with a smile he watched as Dorian’s cock grew limp and drew back into that neatly trimmed nest of hair. He pressed a last little kiss to it and chuckled when it twitched.


	14. ...unless acted upon by an outside force

They stayed like that for several long moments, Bull kneeling and Dorian just leaning on him with distinctly wobbly knees. The boy was really not made for coming standing up, Bull noted with amusement. He loved how he tended to turn to trembling pudding after.

“Uh…” Dorian said intelligently when he found his voice, “Let’s get to the bed, yes?”

It took another few moments for him to realize that he was the one hindering the proceedings and with some effort he righted himself again. Then he took a step back and nearly went sprawling when his foot caught on the robe lying on the ground. He threw out his other foot to catch himself, kicking his staff that he had dropped earlier and sending it clattering across the floor. Bull reached out quickly and grabbed him by his waist and for a second they froze like that, Dorian leaning back precariously in Bull’s hands. Bull could not even name the feeling that lit up in him, but it hit him so hard, like a weight being lifted or a muscle relaxing and he broke out into loud, bubbling laughter, both of humor and of sudden joy. Dorian huffed his best indignant huff, but Bull could hear him laugh under his breath too.

“Oh you would just love to see me fall on my arse, wouldn’t you?” 

Still laughing he grabbed a hold of both of Bull’s arms and tried to help him to his feet. His efforts did not really help but Bull obligingly got up, still grinning. His left leg twinged slightly but he ignored it and held Dorian’s eyes with his own to keep him from noticing. Then he leaned down and caught Dorian’s lips in a kiss.

Dorian stretched up a little to meet him and kissed back with enthusiasm. For a wild second Bull imagined not stopping the kiss again, but staying liked this with those soft lips and that gentle little tongue moving against his own forever. The thought stopped as suddenly as it had come, but it still left Bull feeling warm. Kissing Dorian was certainly something he liked a lot and would want to do for a long time. One day he would just pin him down and kiss him until he could no longer tell up from down, and then kiss him some more. It was Dorian who broke away first and drew back. He was breathing a little heavier again and he licked his lips.

“Now, will you get on the bed or do you want me to throw you? I don’t know if the bed can take it.”

“I’m going, I’m going,” Bull laughed.

He went over and sat on the bed and watched as Dorian reassembled himself. He smoothed his hair back and drew himself up, but then remembered what he was wearing. Bull could see him go from being self conscious and slightly awkward to deciding to own it in a split second as he drew himself back up to his earlier posture and even put the smirk on again, fixing Bull with his eyes.

He really did know something about command and authority, even if he was only imitating them here. Bull could still feel the echoes of the power he had felt mere moments ago over his skin. Dorian could actually back his posturing up and when he looked at Bull like that, like he was his now to do with as he liked, to command and to take, Bull shivered as his amusement dissipated back into anticipation and heat.

“Lie back,” Dorian commanded and Bull felt a slight push against his shoulder, a small reminder of what Dorian could do. He went with it obediently, lying down lengthways on the bed and stretching out his legs.

Dorian came towards the bed slowly, letting Bull rake his eyes up and down his form, preening sightly when Bull’s eye lingered on him. He was so lovely, Bull thought he would never want to stop looking, smooth skin and elegant curves and pretty little cock, all framed in stark contrast by black leather and the promise of power.

Dorian reached the foot of the bed and climbed up onto it on his knees, prowling and letting his movements flow under Bull’s gaze, smirking up at him knowingly through his lashes. Then he looked down along Bull’s form, all the way to his feet.

“Now, how do I open this?” He asked.

Bull sat up a bit, leaning on his elbows and looking down to where Dorian was contemplating his brace.

“Unscrew both discs and take off the front guard. Then just pull it off.”

Dorian placed one hand on Bull’s leg, gentle and warm, and started to open it. It took him a while to figure out what turned in what direction, but at last he had it. He pulled it off carefully and with a thoughtful hum he put it down next to the bed. Next he untied Bull’s boots and pulled them off too, and then started to run both hands over Bull’s left ankle. His grips was firm and very warm and Bull sighed, rolling his foot in Dorian’s hands. Then he tried to sit up further to undo the drawstrings of his pants, but Dorian held out one hand and he felt the force again, pushing him back. It was a lot lighter than it had been and he tried to strain against it, remaining upright. Dorian tutted.

“No, no, Bull. Don’t tell me you don’t know how this whole ‘me undressing you’ thing works.”

“People are mostly more about me undressing them,” Bull said and shrugged. He had never given it much thought. It just felt strange to have someone else do it, though he was not sure why.

Dorian huffed, but let him remain upright. He stroked both hands up his legs through the pants, watching the fabric bunch and stretch over Bull’s thighs. He came up them slowly, smiling all the way and Bull felt a tingling in his skin rise up with them, faint at first but growing stronger, heating up his skin with a strange, unfamiliar warmth. It was spreading out from Dorian’s fingers, over his skin and deeper into the muscles of his thighs and he sighed as they relaxed without him telling them too.

When Dorian came close to Bull’s crotch the tingling stopped, but Dorian’s hands on him made his skin light up all the same and the warmth and arousal slowly made his cock swell again from where it had flagged. The cloth over it though was still dark and sticky from earlier and Dorian contemplated the spot with darkening eyes. Then he looked up and met Bull’s gaze, smiling hot and dangerous, and licked his lips.

“One day I will learn to take you in completely,” he promised with dark heat in his voice and Bull’s cock throbbed hard.

“But for now, there are other things I want to do to you,” he said, still promising, and they both smiled. Dorian was so beautiful, Bull could feel it in his heart and his cock and the feeling of it was like the force pressing him back, only harder in a way and more sharp, and he felt more helpless against it. 

“Lovely boy,” Bull whispered. He couldn’t help it.

Dorian licked his lips again and just stared for a second. Then he shook his head a little as if coming back to himself and started to undo Bull’s pants. Once they were undone he tugged at them and Bull lifted his arse helpfully, letting Dorian draw them down completely. He pulled them off Bull’s feet and dropped them over the edge of the bed.

When he came up again he let his eyes rake back over Bull’s naked form and started to tremble. Bull smiled at his distraction even as it made his own arousal twinge. Dorian’s cock was also starting to perk up now and Bull could see how he wanted to drop everything and just use his mouth. He saw it in the way Dorian’s eyes couldn’t quite leave Bull’s crotch, how he was licking his lips and how his cock was twitching. 

Bull was no stranger to being looked at with desire, but still this struck him as special, being wanted by Dorian like this, wanted so much he kept forgetting his act and whatever he had been planning. Bull knew in that moment that there was nothing he would not do for this, for that look and that want. That there was something about it he never wanted to miss again. 

At last though Dorian managed to catch himself a little. He looked down at himself then and started to undo the laces on his left glove, but Bull quickly reached forward and stopped his hand. Dorian looked surprised at first, but then he smiled.

“Oh, you like them, do you?”

“Hm, yes. Your boots too… leave them on?”

Dorian smiled even wider. “Oh, look who has a little kink,” he chuckled, “alright then. Always happy to take advantage of those.”

He relinquished the laces and instead shuffled up the bed a little until he was kneeling next to Bull’s chest, looking down at him.

“Now then,” he said and took a deep breath to steady himself. “Enough with the distractions. Turn on your front.”

He waved his hand imperiously and Bull obeyed. Not that he didn’t want to fight Dorian a little, see how far he could still be distracting, but he was also rather curious what Dorian wanted to do. He lay down flat on his stomach, propping his head up on his forearms. He shuffled a little until his cock lay straight up beneath him, and then he shuffled again because it felt rather good to get a little rub there.

He could not see Dorian anymore, but he could still feel him kneeling against his side. Bull waited a little and then turned his head to look around as far as he could. He had expected some kind of physical restraints, but found none.

“I sorta assumed you would tie me up,” he said and Dorian scoffed. 

“And have you tear out the headboard? I don’t think so. Also ropes are for those who are actually unable to break them.”

“You could have gone for chains. People usually do.”

“Ugh, chains. Ugly, heavy, clanky things. No. I do not fight by hitting things with a stick and I do not immobilize people with chains.”

Bull chuckled. “We wouldn’t want to cramp your style now, would we.”

“Indeed we would not. You like my style.”

Bull laughed. “I do.” He said and spread his arms out to get up. If he wasn’t tied down he could still try to get the better of Dorian, try to get him to give up. Try to see if he wouldn’t.

He rose up slowly, but just as he managed to get his right arm under him Dorian placed a hand on his shoulder and pressed it down. Nothing happened at first and Bull started to laugh, before he felt it. The tingling from earlier, only now it was stronger, running out from Dorian’s hands like a starburst over his shoulder and down his arm. It felt a little like a limb falling asleep at first, but there was heat underneath it too. Then there was a pulse of sensation and Bull’s entire shoulder tensed up sharply, all his muscles locking up almost to the point of pain and he gasped. The pulse disappeared as quickly as it had come and in its wake Bull still felt the tingling pins and needles and a bone deep feeling of relaxation spread through his shoulder and arm, all muscles unlocking together and he sagged back into the bed. His arm felt like wet sand, heavy and useless and he found he could not move it.

For a second panic gripped his mind again and he struggled to regain control of his arm. It moved slightly when he told it too, but all strength seemed to have left it. He tensed up all over to compensate but he couldn’t get it back. Real fear flooded him like ice water and for a second he reached around in his mind for some anchor, something that would bring him back. And then Dorian was there, close against him with his entire body, lying over him warm and solid.

“Hush,” he whispered into his ear, sending a different kind of tingle down his spine, “it’s alright, Bull. It will pass in a second.”

Bull reached out and found that voice and the feeling of Dorian’s body and the fear ebbed away again. He felt the strength slowly returning to his arm, but it still felt warm and soft somehow, relaxed in a way he had seldom felt before. In his mind the fear and near panic left behind only a silence, warm too like his arm, leaving his thoughts sluggish but content.

Dorian remained close to him, stroking over his sides and back with hands that did not tingle and he continued murmuring into his ear, words Bull could not quite make out. After a long while he drew back a little, but never broke contact.

“Bull?” He asked gently.

Bull found he could only mumble in response.

“Bull, I will need you to use words now,” Dorian said and Bull could hear the concern in his voice and it made him smile groggily.

“Hm, yes…” Bull searched around in he stillness of his mind a little. “’Mfine,” he managed at last, “Dorian…”

Just saying his name seemed to bring the world back into focus. Or at least the parts of the world that mattered right now. Dorian was still stroking him and was now pressing kisses to the back of his head and down his spine. Gathering himself a little Bull noticed how strange it felt, somehow lopsided, to have his right shoulder and arm feel that soft and relaxed. It made him really feel the knots in his other shoulder and he wriggled it a bit in an effort to clear them, even though that never really helped.

Then he felt Dorian’s hands wander to his left shoulder. They hesitated there for a bit until Bull understood what he was waiting for and gave a little sigh and a weak nod. Another sharp pang went through him, though less strong than the first had been. The tension was still hard though and the pins and needles seemed to spread further his time. He swore he could feel them in his cock now. He had his arm stretched out flat this time so he didn’t fall, and now that he was prepared for it he could really feel the unlocking of muscles and the resulting weakness spread and the knowledge of it coursed through him hotter this time and he moaned at the heat and sudden weakness but also at the tightening in his cock as it started to strain between his belly and the bed.

Dorian had him, he was here and he had him and suddenly he needed to roll his hips hard, pressing his cock into the mattress as the sensation tightened in his groin. He dragged his cock over the sheets with a gasp, his orgasm already building fast and hard and big in him. His mouth dropped open and he moaned, loud and free.

He heard his moan echoed above him and Dorian drew both his hands, tingling again and firm down his back until they both lay splayed over his arse. He ground his cock down again, drawing close and knowing what Dorian was about to do he chased it, trying to get there before he-

Bull cried out this time as the shock pumped into his hips, locking up everything across his lower back, his pelvis and his thighs. He clamped down so hard he could feel the crest of his orgasm right there, inches from his reach but frozen in time, suspended in hot desperate want for a torturous second. Then everything abated again, his climax drew back from him as we went completely slack, sinking into the mattress like a sack of wet grain. 

Bull almost whimpered in frustration. His cock was the only thing not completely soft about him now, still throbbing on the border to pain as every other part in his body was so warm and giving and relaxed he knew he would not be able to move if he wanted to.

And then Dorian was back next to his head, so very close and warm, whispering.

“Tell me what you want.”

Bull gasped into the pillow and tried to struggle, but the slackness in his muscles did not even let him squirm. His head was empty again, just filled with the murmuring and soothing sound Dorian’s power made in his mind, as well as the throbbing, burning need that seemed to encompass his entire lower body now. There was not a single thought left in him, just that throbbing and then Dorian leaning down to whisper hotly into his twitching ear. 

“Tell me what you want.”

And just like that Bull knew.

“Fuck me,” he breathed, “please.”

Dorian gave a long, low groan and sagged against Bull’s side. Bull could feel Dorian’s cock pressing hard into his ribs and he also felt the twitching and trembling of a Dorian very close to being completely overwhelmed. This was what he wanted. Dorian on top of him, inside him, possessing him even as he lost himself in pleasure and could not hold on. He wanted Dorian’s pleasure for his own and he did not care if that counted or not. He wanted it so badly he was more than prepared to beg for it.

“Please,” he said again and his cock gave another hard throb at hearing himself.

Dorian was audibly panting  now , but he also managed to right himself somewhat. “Oil…” he muttered, “we are going to need some kind of-”

“Dresser,” Bull just growled and Dorian scrambled over to it, letting out a sigh of his own as he lost contact to Bull’s skin. The sparking sensation stopped completely and Bull raised his head again to watch Dorian rummage through the drawers and regain his breath somewhat.

When he found the oil he turned back to Bull and smiled. He looked a little calmer now, not quite as close to the edge anymore and Bull felt himself draw back to himself a little as well. With some difficulty he got himself up on his knees and elbows. He made a point of wriggling his arse in the air a little which startled a completely unguarded laugh out of Dorian.

“Oh, you are ridiculous,” he said and his voice was so warm and fond that Bull had to blink hard a few times before meeting his eyes again. Dorian seemed to lose himself for a short second of mutual staring, but then caught himself and shuffled back up to Bull’s side.

Bull spread his legs a little and leaned forward on both arms, resting his forehead against the pillow. All his muscles still felt like pudding but he found a position he would be able to hold for a while. Not that he believed either of them would take very long now. His cock was hanging full and heavy between his legs and he knew Dorian was in no position to really make it last. He did not want it to last, not this time. He wanted Dorian to come inside him and he wanted to come himself with Dorian inside him with an intensity he had not been prepared for.

He heard Dorian uncork the bottle with his teeth and then hissed at the cold of the oil running over his hole. He was just about to complain about it when Dorian’s fingers were there, light and gentle at first, stroking over his rim and getting progressively firmer. Bull sighed at the pleasant tug and push. 

It had been quite some time since he had last done this, but he was still very much relaxed all over. Dorian’s fingers were gentle but sure as they gradually pressed inward, massaging his rim and encouraging him to stretch and Bull pressed back against him and just let himself moan. It felt close and warm and beautifully peaceful, all his muscles still singing in relaxation and Dorian’s gentleness and the low sighing little moans he was giving off as Bull took two of his fingers at once. 

Bull completely lost track of the time Dorian spent with his fingers there, his own arousal and need a presence so constant now it receded into the background, almost content to wait. Bull was no longer struggling in any way. Dorian would look after him, he knew. Dorian would know when it was time for him to come, powerful boy with the lovely voice and fingers and scent.

At long last Dorian seemed satisfied and withdrew his fingers. The oil came back, warmer this time and more liquid, making a glorious mess all over his crack and hole and running down his balls and then he felt the blunt tip of Dorian’s cock, pressing against him and then entering, stretching him slow but relentless. It burned at first, just a little, but that gave way soon to nothing but heat and fullness and the feeling of being held, inside and out. He heard Dorian moan out loud above him and felt his hands clutch hard at his hips as the stretch spread and the pressure inside him built until he felt Dorian bottom out inside of him with the press of his hip against Bull’s arse.

They stayed like that for a few seconds as they both regained their bearings. Bull found himself first, reaching over the overwhelming sensation for his words.

“Dorian,” he moaned, “please.”

Dorian groaned at that like it was him getting skewered. Then he drew back a little and thrust forward with force. His cock dragged over Bull’s rim and that spot inside him and his mind blanked out in pleasure. He heard Dorian cry out and felt him snap his hips forward hard, meeting him just as he pressed himself back against him. Dorian hammered into him with abandon then, free and hard. Bull felt like he would burn, his pelvis and his ass and his cock were rocked and rubbed so hard and so completely. His cock was throbbing and dribbling down onto the sheets in a steady string, pulsing hard each time Dorian hit that spot in him. He heard his voice rising up over the slapping of skin and Dorian’s moaning now and he felt it build and build till he almost feared it. On instinct and without thinking he shifted his weight onto his left shoulder and reached down with his right hand for his cock, gripping it tight. Dorian thrust into him so hard it drove him forward into his own fist and after a mere handful of strokes he came. 

He felt it start deep inside him where Dorian’s cock was pummeling hard into his spot and it spread like bursting, hot and consuming and he thought he heard himself yell as it crested over him, making him shoot so hard it almost hurt, coming all over the sheets and his hand, wet and messy and explosive. He clamped down hard on Dorian’s cock and he felt his hands clench on his hips and Dorian wailed as he came, still pumping into Bull through his orgasm so hard the bed frame shook against the wall.

At last the roaring abated again and they hung suspended like that for some time, spent and panting until Dorian softened and drew out of Bull with a little whimper. Bull just sagged forward until he was lying flat again and Dorian dropped down on top of him and they both lay still.

 

After a long time lying together like that and panting, Dorian seemed to catch his breath first. He stirred and groaned and then rolled off of Bull.

“If we don’t clean up we will be disgusting in the morning,” he mumbled and clumsily heaved himself out of bed. 

Bull felt the cold hit him as soon as Dorian was gone, but he had warmth still in his bones and his mind would not let him protest. Indeed it did not take Dorian long and Bull just remained lying there, completely relaxed and warm and fuzzy as he let himself be cleaned up with the wet cloth. He drifted for a while as Dorian disposed of it and returned, lying down next to Bull and stroking his back and sides soothingly, murmuring words Bull did not understand but still liked to hear. Or maybe that was just Dorian’s voice, after all.

He came back to himself some time after and cracked his eye open to look at Dorian. He was lying on his side and watching him, still stroking him absentmindedly. He looked rather mussed and tumbled himself, but he was smiling. When he saw Bull look at him he smiled even wider and his eyes sparkled. Then he took his hand back and gestured with it.

“Now can I take this off?” He asked, clearly aiming for exasperated but only coming out on the side of tired and fond. There was no act left in him.

“Hm, alright,” Bull murmured, “but please, let me.”

Bull sat up until he was half upright and reached for Dorian’s right hand. Dorian huffed a small laugh and let him take it in both of his. Bull pressed a kiss to the palm, half on the leather and half on the skin and then undid the lacing carefully, all the way up his arm. Then he repeated the action on the other arm. He felt warm and floaty and not quite awake, Dorian was talking to him gently now, though he still could not quite make out the words. Something about him being good at this, and it almost made him laugh to think that Dorian was using his own lines on him again. But he did not laugh. It was too warm to be funny now, and too light to want to disturb.

Bull moved on to Dorian’s boots and removed them as well. Then he came up and laid Dorian down beneath him, arranging him on his back and lay down beside him so that he could lay his head half on his chest and spread his arms and shoulder over him. It took some arranging so that he could lie like and that and breathe while still keeping his horns out of Dorian’s face, but eventually he made it work, lying more on his side and turning his head into Dorian’s chest. He tried not to make himself too heavy, but Dorian did not protest and instead just wrapped his arms around Bull’s shoulders and head as far as he could reach and held him there, stroking him gently and still murmuring.

For a long while they just lay like that and Bull felt and heard Dorian breathe. His skin was so warm and real, so much more relevant than anything else beyond their points of contact. Bull could not remember the last time he had been held like this and in his mussy thoughts it occurred to him that he did not want anyone else to hold him like this, ever.

“You are a strange man,” Dorian said after a long silence, stroking gently over Bull’s horns. “That really was what you wanted.” He did not sound disbelieving, just puzzled. They lay in silence for a long time, with Dorian stroking Bull’s horns and head. Bull closed his eyes and concentrated on the feeling, holding on to it and letting the rest of the world be for now.

 

“You were so beautiful today,” Bull murmured into Dorian’s chest.

“Yes, well. You would not believe the looks I got coming up here,” Dorian said with a smirk in his voice and Bull chuckled.

“It’s not every day they see you striding around looking like that.”

“It would be rather embarrassing if it hadn’t been for the look I also got from you.”

“You did make quite the picture. And you like the jaws dropping, don’t lie.”

Bull chuckled again and Dorian laughed, making his chest and thus Bull’s head wobble. It made Bull laugh even more and press a kiss to the skin closest to him. The laughter subsided and he sensed that Dorian was growing serious. His chest rose and fell under Bull as he took a deep breath to speak.

“Bull, was that… alright?”

Bull was feeling peaceful and light, and he knew he would not trade that feeling for the world now. He hummed against Dorian’s skin.

“Yes, it was. It was intense, sure. It’s been some time since anyone could get me there, you know? A really long time. But I’m glad you can.”

Dorian gave a relieved sigh. “I’m glad too. I’m glad I could do that for you. I’ll admit you had me concerned for a moment there or two.”

Bull gave another gentle hum. “That’s expected. These things never go completely smooth on the first ride. But I gather this wasn’t your first time overall?”

“Well no, in a manner of speaking. But no one was ever quite- No one was ever anything like you.”

Bull laughed. “No, I’ll bet. Real special snowflake, that’s me.”

“It is, Bull. It really is.”

Dorian trailed off and continued to stroke Bull’s head and the roots of his horns until his movements slowed and after a while they stopped. Dorian was almost asleep under Bull, one hand still on a horn and the other on a shoulder.

Bull laid his hand on Dorian’s chest, spreading his fingers to span over his left breast. He felt the warmth of his smooth skin and the heartbeat beneath it, slow and steady so close to sleep. Bull found that his body no longer felt as fragile as it had that day on the battlements, and that the awful thoughts of crushing and pain and death no longer assailed him. His mind was blessedly quiet now, as calm as Dorian’s breathing.

Dorian was doing things to him, even like this, lying under him so trusting that it stole Bull’s breath away. He was so strong and beautiful, and also so small compared to Bull’s hands, so trusting compared to Bull’s wild mind, but powerful too, powerful enough to hold his own against him. Pin him down and know when he needed it, get pinned by him and not be afraid.

Thoughts had been coming to him before now, strong thoughts and loud ones he had done his best to turn a deaf ear to. He had practice with that, after all, and after a while most thoughts would fall silent. But now he was feeling light and tired, and maybe that would have to be his excuse. He found that once he let them, his thoughts would not stop. 

Beautiful. Brave. Strong. Clever. His. Bull had never before thought of another person like this. He had never thought it allowed, or even possible. How could he want a person to belong to him, or to belong to someone himself? Not in the sense of possession even, rather in the sense of affiliation. An affiliation so primary he did not even have a concept for it. Just a word, maybe, a word that conveyed a lot, if not everything, of what he felt. But even if it were possible, how would he care for someone so important? What would he do now? What would they do now?

But maybe it was going to be alright. After all, Dorian liked it when Bull wanted things.


	15. Advance and evade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm still here! Been in a bit of a block lately, but I'm trying to get back on.  
> So here's the next chapter, late and short and somewhat weak maybe, but I hope to get back on track. Can't leave these two to their own devices for to long now, can I? :)

It was early in the afternoon of the first truly warm summer day and Bull was watching Dorian lose thoroughly to Cullen over chess. The sunlight was filtering through the woven roof of the pavilion and reflecting gently on the stone board and on Cullen’s armor, and it played most enticingly over Dorian’s face and hair. Maybe Bull wasn’t so much watching the games as the men playing them. He had just returned from a lengthy expedition to the exalted plains and he was glad to be back, sitting in the garden to enjoy the sun, Dorian’s presence and the banter over the chess board. But most of all he was soaking up the sort of peace only found in places where the ruins of war were not still smoking. Eleanne had planted lavender bushes along the small colonnade and the scent never failed to chase away thoughts of the sea or of burning.

So it was that Bull wore a faint smile on his face as he sat on a bench, leaning against a pillar and more or less subtly eavesdropping and watching. Both men were trading their usual snark and easy friendship over the board, but it was clear to Bull that both of them were troubled.

Cullen was struggling physically and mentally with the absence of the lyrium in his blood. He was pale and shaky, and though he was smiling at Dorian the tension was still there underneath. Bull was not supposed to know anything about that, but as of late the symptoms had been getting worse. He was just keeping an eye on him. He liked Cullen, both as a man who was delightful to fluster and trustworthy to follow and such a withdrawal was always worrying. There was nothing he could do, really, but he kept watching all the same.

Dorian seemed to have the same idea. Bull knew that he was also fond of Cullen and underneath all the snark and exaggerated competitiveness they were developing a real friendship that Bull liked to see. It was not long ago that Dorian had seemed so alone in the south, so sure he had no one he could rely on. Bull prided himself in having a part in alleviating that somewhat, but still. The relationships with Cullen or Eleanne or Cole were a lot more clear and Bull doubted that anyone would ever get much of a headache over them. 

Except right now maybe, where Dorian was looking distinctly strained. He was smiling and laughing as much as always, but Bull could see the stiffness in the corners of his eyes and mouth, the discomfort in the spine and shoulders, the way he kept shifting as if nervous. Something was wrong, but it was either about Cullen’s own health or something else that Dorian was trying to hide. So no matter how much Bull found he wanted to ask about it, it would have to wait for when Cullen was gone. Or perhaps he should wait for Dorian to come out with it by himself. That was probably the most reasonable thing to do. His mind made up to let it lie, Bull sauntered over and both men looked up to him with smiles.

“Decided to stop eavesdropping and join us, have you?” Dorian asked.

“You weren’t all that subtle, you know,” Cullen chuckled and Bull laughed. 

“Hey now, who said I wanted to be? I can be if I want to!” Bull crossed his arms and studied the board. “That does not look good, Dorian,” he tutted, “that looks downright ugly.”

Dorian snorted and waved his hand. “Yes, well. This wasn’t my round anyway. Or my day.” He smiled as he said it though and then winked at Cullen. “Would you care for another rematch, Commander?”

Cullen shook his head and rose, ever so slightly unsteady. “Ah, no, I think I had best get going anyway. Bull, why don’t you play a round. If you let him win I’m sure he would appreciate the rare sense of achievement.”

Dorian gasped theatrically, aiming for shocked offense. “Commander!” he exclaimed, “I resent those implications!”

“I learned them from the best,” Cullen said with a bow. Then he turned and left for the main hall. He still looked pale and shaky, but he was smiling. Bull laughed and pulled Cullen’s chair back so he could sit at the board. Then he gave Dorian his best one eyed wink and started to set up a new game.

“It seems Cullen is quite good at this,” he remarked, “that or you are really bad.”

Dorian sniffed. “Maybe I let him win?”

“What, out of pity? That’s unlike you.”

“It is, mostly. But no, he actually is rather skilled. Especially considering-” Dorian stopped himself and shook his head, looking down hard at the table. Bull just huffed and looked over the ready board for a second before pushing a pawn forward.

“So,” he remarked casually, “how’s he holding up?”

Dorian frowned at him an brought his own pawn into play. “I’m not going to gossip about it. You want to know what I think of his clothes? Fine. You want to know about him, you’ll have to ask him yourself.”

Bull nodded, both at Dorian and at the move. “Fair enough. So how about you?” He asked before he remembered that he hadn’t wanted to ask. So much for letting it lie then. Dorian looked up quickly and fixed Bull with a blank stare.

“What about me? My clothes are impeccable as always.”

“So they are,” Bull said in his best neutral voice, resisting the urge to bite his tongue as they continued to play a while in silence. It was still warm and pleasant and peaceful, smelling of lavender and of Dorian’s skin and perfume and Bull had all the time in the world. So he just smiled at the scent and concentrated on their game. In truth Dorian was not a bad player at all, but he was also not paying attention. His strategies were set up well, but it was too easy to blindside him with just a few moves of planning. At last Bull moved him into checkmate and Dorian sighed as he tipped his king.

“Fine. I got a letter this morning,” he said suddenly.

“Did you now? Something dirty?” Bull smirked.

“Of course, I always get those! You would not believe the collection of scandalous material I have gathered by now, thinly veiled as love poetry. All still desperate for a sign, I’m sure. It’s a wonder the inquisition forces get anything done at all at this point, not to mention the noble echelons of all the nations around,” he laughed, haughty and strained.

Bull mentally slapped himself. Dorian going off on such a tangent was not a good sign and Bull just had to go and provide such an opening. It was no use prodding though, so he just quietly reset the board and his strategy. He went first this time, opening with a more central move while Dorian tried his hand at flanking. Bull made sure to keep his eyes fixed on the board and at last he heard Dorian shift slightly and sigh.

“It was from my father,” he said with an annoyed huff, “Not to me, of course, oh no. To mother Giselle of all people! Picked from her claws and delivered to me by Eleanne herself.”

Bull still watched the board. “So, what does he want?” He asked casually. It was an obvious tactic, but Dorian didn’t seem to mind, he just continued to play and to talk.

“He wanted mother Giselle to trick me into meeting his retainer in Redcliffe. To talk, as he says. To club me over the head and drag me back to Qarinus, as is more likely.”

Bull hummed. “You know we can at least stop that from happening.” Something drew tighter in his chest and he ignored it, for now. Dorian was still trying to flank his main approach.

“Ah, yes. Eleanne already offered to come with me. She looked about ready to do some clubbing herself. Quite unnecessarily touching, getting that angry on my behalf.”

Bull veered out a little. “That’s been going around. But seeing as the whole thing has you sitting on ants already, will you go? Reconcile with the old homeland?” Bull tried to keep his voice neutral against the sudden, buzzing anxiety in his belly. Things were wrong here, very wrong in a number of ways Bull was not quite sure of yet. Dorian had not seen his last maneuver.

“No,” Dorian said decisively, clicking a tower down hard.

“Why not?”

“How would you feel if your Tamassran wrote to you now and wanted to meet you?” He asked sharply.

“Your father can hardly be more disappointed in you than my Tamassran is in me,” Bull joked lamely and immediately regretted it in the ensuing silence. He looked up carefully to meet Dorian’s eyes to find that they were flashing.

“Your Tamassran did not try to-” He exclaimed, drawing back with a jerk that scattered the pieces and nearly upset the table. Bull caught it with one hand even as his heart skipped a beat.

“Try to what, Dorian,” he asked, as steadily as he could.

Dorian sagged and sighed and looked away again. “I’m sorry, Bull,” he said so quietly Bull nearly couldn’t hear, “I did not mean to say that, or bring her into it. It was uncalled for, and the situations are hardly comparable.”

Bull tilted his head and tried to catch Dorian’s eyes while he still tried to evade him. He wanted to reach out and touch his hand suddenly, but stopped himself. Instead he stretched out his right leg under the table until his toes lightly brushed against Dorian’s ankle. He almost smiled when Dorian did not flinch. Fear was still churning in him, but he squashed it. This was too important, whatever this was.

“Do you think so?” He asked. “You see someone who’s burned out. Someone who left his home and entire life behind, and for what?”

Dorian sucked in a sudden breath. “Are you suggesting we’re similar?” He was so surprised he almost sounded offended.

“How’s that mirror treating you?” Bull teased.

“My mirror treats me with nothing but the utmost kindness,” Dorian mumbled and then pressed his ankle firmly against Bull’s foot. Bull couldn’t help but smile. Then he looked down at the jumbled game pieces and started to reset them again. Dorian watched in silence, but seemed to relax a little.

“Seriously though,” Bull said when the board was done, “I know family stuff can be rough. I will go with you, if you like.”

Dorian smiled weakly. “Who says I’m going?”

“I know you are. Because, to answer your question, I would go. But I would not go alone.”

Dorian did not answer but made the first move, gently pushing a pawn forward two paces.


	16. The Price of Forgiveness

By the time they arrived in Redcliffe the summer was already well underway. Even the windy little town was warmed through and through by the high sun, burning down from the sky unhindered by any clouds, just warped and tinged green by the breach. They had taken their time in getting there, stopping often to see the progress of the rebuilding efforts or solving minor troubles along the way. Anything, really, to let Dorian pretend he was not the only reason they ended up riding through Redcliffe’s gates.

Bull lead the way through the streets, Eleanne and Varric carefully flanking Dorian behind him. They were trying to be subtle but it was clear from their bearing that they couldn’t quite shake the same paranoia Bull was feeling. The streets were bustling and friendly as ever, nothing seemed out of place. It was unnerving. Dorian himself had given up his air of joking nonchalance as soon as the town had come into view and was now going for haughty and superior instead. Bull glared at anyone who dared to look at them sideways.

They approached the Gull and Lantern unhindered and Bull did not have to open the door to know that the place was prepared. It was still early in the afternoon but the windows were boarded up and there was not one person within fifty feet of the building. Dorian stopped before the door and drew himself up, giving Bull a few seconds to watch around. No one was even looking at them anymore. He rolled his shoulders and pushed past Dorian, opening the door and going in first.

The light inside was dim and dusty, filtering through the window boards and onto the deserted tables and the empty bar. It was dead quiet and the air was stuffy and hard to breathe, unpleasantly warm. Bull took a few careful steps inside, looking around as the others quietly filed in behind him. 

He caught the flicker of a shadow out of the corner of his eye, but before he could get his hammer off his back, a man came out from behind the stairwell door. He looked to be in his late fifties, his dark skin wrinkled and his black hair graying, and he had Dorian’s eyes. The man moved slowly and carefully, but Bull did not miss the fact that his footfall was almost soundless and that though he bore no staff he was quite obviously someone who thought himself a force to be reckoned with.

Magister Halward Pavus did not even look at Bull. He only faintly raised an eyebrow in his direction and tried to look past him. For a second Bull did not budge and made himself even broader, only to get ignored harder. At last though he conceded and reluctantly took a step aside. As soon as he could see past Bull the magister’s eyes widened for a second. “Dorian,” he said and his voice sounded older than he looked, scratchy and sad and heavily accented.

Dorian froze for a second and when Bull turned to catch his expression all he could see was anger, burning like a smoldering fire, hot and toxic and choking. Dorian was glaring, but there were tears in his eyes and his hands were shaking. 

Bull found that he did not know what to think. He had not actually expected an ambush, what he had expected was a great deal of awkwardness. But this, this wasn’t just awkward. Dorian was distressed beyond hiding it and watching it was making Bull’s skin crawl. Whatever answers they would get today, Bull knew he would not like them.

“Father,” said at last with enough acid in his voice to stop it from breaking, “What is this? Ambush? Kidnapping? Warm family reunion?”

Halward sighed deeply and then turned to Eleanne. “This is how it has always been,” he said sadly. Like he was the one hurt. Like Dorian was being unreasonable. 

“How it has always been?” Bull said, almost surprised to hear his own voice so deep and menacing, “you tricking him and him being angry about being tricked?”

Halward turned to him in surprise as if seeing him for the first time. Then a though seemed to occur to him and he narrowed his eyes, ever so slightly. Bull could see the gears turning in his mind. Good at ignoring those beneath him, Bull thought, but not actually stupid. Very bad. Instead of following up on it though Halward turned back to Eleanne.

“My apologies for the deception, inquisitor. I never intended for you to be involved.”

Dorian scoffed. “Of course not. Magister Pavus could not be seen with the dread inquisitor. What would people think?” 

His sarcasm held no humor and Eleanne’s expression was darkening by the second. Bull traded a quick glance with her before she fixed Halward with a level stare.

“Considering you lied to him to get him here he has every right to be furious,” she said.

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it!” Dorian looked back to his father with a belligerent snarl. “But maybe you should.”

Bull almost shuddered. He had not seen Dorian hide behind such vicious and cold hostility before. It was transparent and painful.

“Dorian, please…” Halward said, but Dorian turned his back to him.

“I prefer the company of men,” he announced to the room at large. “My father disapproves.”

Eleanne blinked, confused. “The company of men? As in, who you sleep with? That’s what this is about?”

“That’s not all it’s about.”

“Dorian, please.” Halward said again, sounding like he meant it this time. Bull took a deep breath as Dorian spun back and pointed at his father.

“He taught me to hate blood magic!” He was shouting now. “The resort of the weak mind, those were his words! But what was the first thing he-”

Dorian swallowed and kept going, even as his voice broke and the first tears spilled over his cheeks.

“When it became clear that I would not put on the show for him, he tried- he tried to change me!”

Bull felt it become physically difficult to keep his feet on the floor. He was trained for this and he was good at it, standing still and betraying nothing of his thoughts, even as they were howling up a storm, pictures of blood and magic coming unbidden like flashes of nightmares. He had not known. He had known that it must be bad, that Dorian was not telling the whole story, but for it to be so monstrous… Bull found that he did not even have a clear thought on that. The magister had tried to change him. Change Dorian, with blood magic. The anger and the fear and the pain were clawing at him like a physical thing now. 

He knew what he wanted. He wanted to snatch Dorian away, away from this place and this man and his crimes and he wanted to hide him until he stopped crying. He also wanted to step forward, draw his hammer and find out if the magister’s blood magic would save him from fifty pounds of metal to the face.

He knew that both were not an option. He knew that he could do neither and that neither would help matters, but he found he could not stop seeing images of both options. He was so angry he thought he might snap. He was so afraid he thought he might scream. Over the ringing in his ears he heard the argument continue.

“Please, Dorian,” Halward was almost begging now, “I only wanted what was best for you.”

“You wanted what was best for you! For your fucking legacy! Anything for that-”

Dorian’s voice was really broken now, but Halward was still arguing in that grating tone of pleading for reason.

“If I had known I would drive you into the arms of…” He barely missed a beat as his eyes flickered over to Bull, “the inquisition-”

“You didn’t!” Dorian said, “I joined the inquisition because it’s the right thing to do!” He took a deep breath and lowered his voice again. Still pained, but quiet now, on the verge of giving up.

“Once I had a father who would have known that.”

Then he turned away from all of them and leaned heavily on one of the tables with both hands, his head bowed. Silence fell over the room except for the sound of breathing. After a long moment, when Bull had almost thought of a way to break the silence himself, Halward spoke up again.

“Once I had a son who trusted me. A trust I betrayed.”

Dorian looked up again. His face was streaked with tears now, but his expression was empty.

Halward continued. “I only wanted to talk to him, to hear his voice again. To ask him to forgive me.”

Dorian looked away, avoiding everyone’s eyes. He righted himself from the table and made two steps towards the door when Eleanne stepped up next to him. She half raised her hand to his shoulder but then seemed to think better of it.

“Don’t leave it like this, Dorian,” she said gently instead, “it will never go away if you just try to ignore it. Just listen to him, alright? You can leave anytime after that.”

Dorian looked at her blankly for a long time, but then at last he nodded, ever so slightly. Halward let out a small huff, the first sigh that did not sound affected.

“And we will be right outside,” Eleanne added suddenly and took two demonstrative steps towards the door. Bull almost opened his mouth to argue, but there was a steel in her eyes now, a look she only ever used when she actually expected to be obeyed. Bull resisted for a second but then nodded and followed her and Varric outside. Bull made a mutinous point of glaring back over his shoulder from the door, only to be once again completely ignored.

 

As soon as the inn door closed behind them, the paralysis seemed to fall from Bull. Out of the momentum of his emotion he took several long strides away from the inn and then spun back to find Eleanne standing behind him, regarding him with infuriating calm. He snarled at her. 

“You are asking him to forgive him? That!? Didn’t you hear what he said?”

She did not even flinch, just held out her hands to calm him. “Bull. Bull, calm down.”

“No! No I won’t! He- he tried-”

She continued to listen but he found he could not go on. He just suddenly felt tired. He stumbled over to the bench that stood against the inns wall and sat down heavily, dropping his head into his hands. He felt Eleanne sit down next to him.

“It can’t be forgiven,”  he mumbled into his hands. “I won’t. I refuse.” 

“Yes. So do I,” Eleanne said and Bull looked up again in surprise.

“What? But you ask him to forgive it? He’s the one it happened to! Why should he-”

“Because, Bull, we don’t just forgive for the benefit of the one forgiven. Living with that kind of hurt and anger and resentment, it’s not a good way to live. Whether or not Halward deserves it, Dorian will feel better if he can forgive him.”

“And if he can’t?” Varric asked quietly, sitting down on Bull’s other side. “What happens if he can’t but thinks that you expect him to? You think that will be any better? I agree with Tiny here, Eleanne. I don’t think this was a good call.”

Eleanne shook her head. “It is his call to make, not mine. I just stopped him from leaving without trying. Now we can just wait. And be there for him when it’s over.”

 

They sat in silence for what seemed like half an eternity, the three of them on the park bench, lost in thought. If anyone looked at them strangely now they did not care.

At long last though, as the sun was setting and the village was growing quiet around them, the inn door opened again and Dorian came out, alone. He looked exhausted and drained and his eyes were red from crying, but still he made a visible effort to look proud and put together. Bull found that in his heart all that wild fury had been replaced with nothing but gray, blunt pain. He got up from the bench slowly and went towards Dorian, standing before him at a safe enough distance, not knowing what to do. Dorian looked at him, too drained for any real expression.

“Dorian,” Bull said at last, gentle and quiet, “let’s get you out of here.”

Dorian just nodded and followed. He did not speak a word, but kept to Bull’s side almost close enough to touch all the way out of town.


	17. Asit-an Asit-ab

Dorian had heard it said once that the ultimate measure of adulthood was the ability to look at the decisions of your parents and to know, without a doubt, that they were wrong.

He had expected so much. Countless times in his head he had played versions of a meeting with his father, countless different variations of being begged for forgiveness or of having it all explained to him like a child. He had pictured his father basically grovelling and admitting to every single wrong thing he had ever done, he had pictured him standing tall and explaining his reasons in terms so rational and persuasive that Dorian would not be able to argue. He had seen himself agree that yes, it had been the right thing to do. He had dreamed about that, more than once. Because that was magister Pavus’s greatest skill. Rhetoric. Even his magical prowess, all his research and all the advancements of his field, all the things he could do to spirits, it all paled in comparison to what Dorian had seen him do to the minds of his peers, given only time and words. Dorian had been afraid.

But now there had been none of that. He had offered no real defense, only an account of his increasingly emotional and desperate reasoning and Dorian was relieved to find that it was all unmitigated bullshit. He had seen too many desperate measures by now, that while wrong and impractical had been too clear in their appeal. They had made Dorian question sometimes, but not now. People are not spirits, he had told his father. You cannot fix them just by replacing a few parts. You cannot break one and expect to get another. It astounded him that in all likelihood his father had not actually known that. Or maybe he had. Either way, the implications were hitting him even harder now than he thought they would.

Now he started thinking about it again, how his father regarded him, how he had thought that changing him would be doing him a favor in the absence of other options, how he thought that the risk was acceptable. How the family legacy still took precedent above all other considerations. How even now Halward really did not understand the horror of what he had planned. And Dorian had almost forgotten it himself. Not truly, but in all his time in the south there was no doubt that he had succeeded in shoving it down so hard it had started to lose his grip on him again somewhat. But seeing his friends react to it, seeing Eleanne’s eyes flash, seeing Varric’s open mouthed stare, seeing Bull lose all color and expression but for the deadly rage in his eye… It was a lot harder to shove down again now.

They walked in silence out of Redcliffe and Dorian kept close to Bull. It helped, having his presence so near, but he fought the impulse to bump into his side. He had the feeling that Bull would probably hug him if he did that and that would certainly make him start crying. He had done enough of that at the inn and he really didn’t want everyone to see him like that again. It was bad enough that he had dragged them all along to see him air his family’s dirty laundry as it was, they shouldn’t have to deal with him breaking down again on the road as well.

They arrived at camp just as the sun was setting and Eleanne chased the scouts out to the perimeter with nothing but a pointed glance. Varric busied himself with the fire and Eleanne started handing around the rations while Dorian just sat down heavily on one of the logs. When the fire finally blazed up bright and warm Bull sat down beside him, half turned to him and leaned back a little. A clear but not too overt invitation. Dorian just took the bowl of soup Eleanne passed him and continued to stare into the fire.

The silence stretched out between them for a long time. It was not an uncomfortable silence as such, but Dorian could still feel their attention on him and it was making the situation awkward. He really just wanted to get out of sight soon, but the rapidly cooling soup in his hands would have to be eaten first. Bull was bound to give him an earful if he just left it. Bull spent a truly remarkable amount of time eating and he was always keeping an eye on everyone else’s portions too. Dorian was still not sure if he actually understood that humans ate less than he did. And then there was the time he had tried to convince Sera that she needed to eat more. That had been entertaining.

Dorian’s mind drifted around that scene until he noticed that he was actually smiling again a little. He looked up and found three pairs of concerned eyes still on him and his heart sank. This would not be so easy to get away from.

“Dorian-” Eleanne started at last and Dorian sighed. This was the conversation then.

“I don’t know if I can forgive him,” he said, surprised to find his voice reasonably steady.

“No one will blame you if you can’t,” Varric butted in. “You wouldn’t be wrong not to.”

“Do you think he meant it though?” Eleanne asked. “His apology?”

Dorian fought the sudden impulse to wrap his arms around himself as he answered. “Is his regret genuine? Yes. Does he regret it for the right reasons? Not really, no.” He swallowed hard on the last word.

Bull then reached over slowly and tapped one finger against Dorian’s bowl. Dorian looked down in puzzlement and noticed that it had nearly tipped out of his hands.

“Ah, I do apologize,” he said, setting it down on the ground. The thought of eating it suddenly had his stomach in knots. “I think I will just retire now.”

Bull just gave a thoughtful hum and Dorian fled.

The inside of the tent was sparse and chilly, and to no one’s surprise Dorian did not feel better here. He felt both very tired and inexplicably high strung and he wanted his mind to go back to that little happy place where Sera and Bull had argued about how an elf is not considered to be starving if she can’t eat half her weight in Druffalo meat. The place where his companions bickered over strange things and just felt like, well, whatever it was they felt like to Dorian. He couldn’t bring himself to think the word right now. The scene was still there in his mind, but it was gray again now and flat, whereas the words of his father were still echoing loud and clear. He was not smiling.

Distantly he noticed that he had not really done anything in the tent, just sunk down on his bedroll. There he sat, looking and feeling dejected when Bull suddenly butted his head through the tent flap. He didn’t say anything but came in with a large tin of traveler’s biscuits that he waved in Dorian’s general direction and then put them down at the foot of his bedroll. Dorian watched him as he took off his harness and brace and then stretched out on his back with his hands behind his head and his eye on Dorian. They stayed like that for a long moment before Dorian felt Bull’s gaze go right into his mind and he had to look away. He didn’t doubt that Bull could see all the roiling, contradictory emotions in him right now.

At last Dorian felt the need to break the silence. He tried for a joking tone, even though it stuck in his throat.

“And to think that my father is still among the better magisters you could meet.”

Bull gave a little sigh. “I don’t think I agree, Dorian,” he said, sounding so gentle and careful that it made Dorian’s eyes sting. He wondered when Bull saying his name had started to sound like that. Soft and warm, like an endearment. He huffed a humorless laugh.

“You want me to change your mind? You want me to tell you some of the stories-”

“No. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t give a shit right now that he could have been worse. I really don’t.”

“I spent a lot of time doing that, you know. Telling myself that it wasn’t that bad. That he is a good man and wouldn’t actually have done it. That he wouldn’t go through with it. That he couldn’t really hate me that much.”

And with that his thin control snapped. He bit his lip trying to stifle his sobs but they just came with the tears and he couldn’t hold them in. He buried his face in his hands and tried to turn away when he found two huge, warm hands close around his shoulders. Gently but with implacable strength Bull drew him against his chest and Dorian just let go. Pain was cresting in him like a wave and he clung to Bull and buried his face in his chest, barely muffling his noises, sobs and little wails, against his warm gray skin. Bull wrapped both arms around him firmly, buried his nose in Dorian’s hair and just let him weep.

For a long time he cried, unable to stop or even slow down the sobbing enough to speak. Bull was humming something deep and soothing again and stroked his hair with one hand. For all that it hurt dreadfully, Dorian also felt like he had never been so cared for and protected since he had been a very small child. The time when his father had still held him after nightmares. But he had been very young and he barely remembered now. His father’s voice no longer sounded gentle when he remembered it.

At last though the tears slowed down again and he could swallow around the sobs. Bull produced a cloth from his pack and pressed it into Dorian’s hand. He did not let go of Bull quite yet, but he managed to detach himself enough to blow his nose and wipe his eyes. Then he scrunched up the cloth in his hands and sagged back again, exhausted. He tried to wipe away some of the wetness from Bull’s chest without much success. Bull chuckled, very gently, and reached around him to arranged their bedrolls before lying back again, pulling Dorian down with him. They shuffled around a bit until at last Dorian came to lie close against Bull’s side, one leg thrown over one of Bull’s and his head lying on one massive arm with his face against Bull’s chest. Bull wrapped the arm around his shoulders and reached over with the other and took his hand. When they had arranged themselves Bull pressed a long kiss to the crown of Dorian’s head.

“Asit-an Asit-ab, Kadan,” he murmured.

“What does that mean?” Dorian asked, muffled against Bull’s skin.

“You are who you are supposed to be. Loosely translated.”

Dorian frowned. That did not quite add up. But still, it was good to hear Bull speak Qunlat again. He had not done that since the day on the Stormcoast. Dorian liked the sound of the language and its rhythm very much and he hoped that Bull might one day speak it again without pain. But then again, he did not want to hear his own name spoken in a Tevene accent anytime soon either. He was who he was supposed to be though. He was who Bull thought he was supposed to be, at least. That was not nothing. He fell asleep quickly, and if he dreamed it was just of the low rumble of Bull’s snoring, and the protection of his arms.

 

When he woke in the morning he was still plastered to Bull’s side. His eyes were sticky and his voice was sore but he already felt a little better. Bull was closer to him now than his father was and though he still felt thin and fragile, that stable presence made facing the day easier. Bull kissed him and hummed and some things just could not be spoiled.

The road home was quick and uneventful. Varric had taken to telling his stories again by the time they got going and Dorian managed to listen to most of them, even though Bull often distracted him with gentle touches as well as the attempt to feed him all of the biscuits, for some reason. They were bland and tasteless and extremely filling, but Bull seemed happier when he ate them, so he did. By the time they finally arrived in Skyhold the promise of a bed and a bath was about equivalent to the promise of never having to see them again. But still, the promise of a bed with Bull in it was also nothing to scoff at. In fact, it was always worth a few biscuits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand we are nearing the end of this particular arc. One more chapter and that will be them sorted.
> 
> I still have a ton of other stuff I’d like to do with these two. Things that started here will go on and I have many different ideas, plot and porn alike. But for those I’ll have to go back to the drawing board. I will do that, eventually, because I doubt they’ll let me off this easy, but it might take some time. Also I don’t know if it will belong to this work (in which case I’ll reopen it) or if I should start a new one (In which case I’ll make a series). If you have any opinions on that, let me know.
> 
> And as always, thank you for reading!


	18. Foreign Language Correspondence

Only two days had passed when Eleanne took off again, pointedly leaving Bull and Dorian behind. Dorian did think of protesting this, but not only did her motivation have some merit, he was also really not in a mood to argue. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t in a mood to bicker, hence her reluctance to have him on the road. Well, either that or she might genuinely care that he could possibly need some time to himself. He could admit that by now, if he inserted the necessary subjunctives in his mind. Also it had occurred to him to try and ferret out Corypheus’s actual name and ancestry, a task for the only researcher in Skyhold who could fluently read ancient Tevene. Not that they had many such texts about, which made his research a lot more difficult and tedious. 

He didn’t even have to check the library in the tower, he knew there would be nothing there, so he took his wine with him down into the cellar stacks. The ‘lower library’, as it was charitably called by the mages, was actually making some progress. The dust had been cleared, mostly, and the catalog was almost complete, even if Dorian still despised the system they used. On the wide desk in the middle of the room he found it opened on the last empty page and surrounded by the last of the books that still needed to be entered. It was abandoned for the evening and Dorian idly shuffled the unsorted books around for something interesting. He pushed aside yet another ten volume work on chantry history and stopped short. Underneath, old and dusty but still uncut lay two books he had never thought to find. One Qunlat grammar and one Qunlat basic dictionary.

His research totally forgotten for the time being he slid into one of the chairs and started with the grammar. He used his penknife to carefully separate the pages, reading as he went. He had not known that such works even existed, let alone how Skyhold had ever come by them, but he was not going to second guess his luck. They were Nevarran, unfortunately, which made the reading rather slow and tedious, but he knew enough to be able to follow the basics. The study of necromancy did require a basic reading proficiency of the tongue.

Qunlat grammar itself was quite interesting, untouched as it was by any influence of the other Thedosian languages, but it was not too complicated. In fact it functioned pretty much exactly as he had thought it would, baring a few unexpected twists. Satisfied so far, he then started on the dictionary. He knew what he was looking for, but finding it still stopped him short in surprise. He sat like that for a long time, staring down at the one word, reading the definition again and again and then just staring into space. Distantly he heard heavy footsteps approach until the door creaked open to admit a looming shape. Bull chuckled and came up next to Dorian, who quickly regained at least some of his composure and straightened up. Bull looked over his shoulder at the dictionary.

“You learning Qunlat?” He asked with a laugh.

“I thought I might as well,” Dorian said glibly, “see, this is interesting: The expression for ‘to be’ is ‘asit’, modified by the who or what in question, as well as by case. ‘Asit-an asit-ab’ means ‘you are who you are’.”

Bull shrugged at him. “Yeah, it’s just a cultural thing. Who you are is who you are supposed to be. It’s redundant, that’s the point.”

“Oh yes, I do understand that. I didn’t find much to puzzle me there, so I looked up ‘Kadan’.”

Bull’s eye widened a fraction but the rest of him grew still. “And what did you find?” He asked, very quietly.

Dorian faltered. He didn’t know how he had thought Bull would react, but to see him actually fight his nerves, that was unexpected.

“It seems to mean a lot of things,” he said. “It appears to be an endearment for an important person in pretty much any capacity. It is not a very enlightening word.”

Bull gave a little huff. “No, it really isn’t.”

“So in what capacity were you using it?”

Bull moved over to Dorian’s side and raised his hand, slowly as if not to startle him. Then he gently ran a finger down Dorian’s cheek, a gesture so tender it made his eyes flutter half shut with the feeling of it.

“In what capacity would you like me to use it?”

Dorian gave a full body sigh of exasperation. Once, just once, he would like to get a straight answer out of Bull. It really did not have to be this hard.

“Are you trying to make this difficult?” He asked, voice just a little sharp, “is that actually your intent, to make things more complicated?”

Bull drew his hand back, startled. “No. I don’t see how it’s complicated. I care about you, you are important to me, we take care of each other. You can determine what you want that to mean.”

“Oh. Alright then.” Dorian frowned down at the book. Maybe this was how it had to be. No matter what he wanted, if Bull didn’t at least- 

“Something is wrong. What is it?” Bull asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Dorian abruptly stood up from his chair and took a step away. “Nothing! Nothing is wrong,” he said, feeling more defensive than he really should.

Bull frowned, but did not move closer. “You are lying to me, I can tell you know. Ben-Hassrath and all that.”

“Bull, what am I to you?”

Bull tilted his head, clearly confused. “You are a friend. Someone I care about, a lot.”

“I thought Qunari didn’t have sex with their friends.”

Bull flinched, almost imperceptibly. “You may not have noticed, but I’m not a very typical Qunari. Or actually a Qunari at all anymore.”

Dorian could not help but frown. He was lost. He did not know what Bull was saying, and he did not even know what he was asking. Likely this whole conversation was completely pointless. He was just making a fool of himself.

“Dorian,” Bull said, infuriatingly gentle, “come on. Tell me what’s going on. I’m lost, what do you want me to say?”

Dorian swallowed around his nerves. Maybe he was not the only one completely out on a limb here, maybe he was. But still, if he never asked he would never know.

“Just… I need to know. What do you want from this?”

Bull seemed to relax a little. “Whatever you want is fine by me. You want to keep doing this, I’ll be more than ok with that.”

Anger flared up in Dorian with unexpected intensity. He had heard that so often now, if he heard it again he felt like he would scream. Nothing right now could make that ridiculous evasion acceptable, cultural differences be damned.

“Vishante Kaffas!” he almost yelled, slamming his hand down on the table, “every time you say that! That is your answer to everything, you damned coward! No! This nonsense stops right here. I demand that you tell me what you want.”

He stood there seething for a long moment while Bull stared at him, clearly startled. Then his giant shoulders sagged. He looked so unsure suddenly and it tugged at Dorian’s heart.

“It’s not nonsense, Dorian. I really don’t know. Except maybe… I want-”

Bull stopped himself and looked down at his hands that he had folded in a very uncharacteristic gesture of nerves. Then he snapped his eye up to meet Dorian’s, took a very deep breath and started talking in a rush.

“I- I want to be with you. I want to have sex with you. I want to touch you and do things to you and have you do things too, because you’re hot when you do that, so powerful. But you’re powerful too when you lie underneath me, you know that, right? How you can submit to me and not be afraid? It’s amazing. And I want to hear you talk and tell you stories and watch your face through all that. Actually I want to see you pretty much all the time. I want to tell you all this stuff that happened and be with you when other stuff happens and no matter what happens I want you to be there because I feel like we belong together and I’m rambling and I’ll stop now.”

Bull dropped his eyes again and closed his mouth with an audible click. Dorian could do nothing but stare at him with his mouth open, his mind completely blank. The words were kicking up a storm in his mind and he found he could not anchor a single one of them. The world had narrowed down to nothing but Bull and his words, and the overwhelming rush of emotions he did not even have names for in that moment. There was fear there, bone-shaking terror in fact, in the face of something too warm and bright to contemplate. It hurt and he could not touch it. He became slowly aware that he was still standing there with his mouth open and unable to say anything. 

“Also I still really like giving you what you need,” Bull said quietly into the silence.

“W- Why?” Dorian coughed once and had to try again.

Bull did not look up. “Well for one its what I do for people I care about. Two, seeing you lose yourself in pleasure and need is the hottest thing since that one time a barrel of Gaatlok fell into a volcano.”

Dorian laughed then, a startled and genuine sound that surprised both of them. He found the terror abated somewhat. This was still Bull, and for all Dorian’s ridiculous emotions right now he remained Bull. Whatever it was, whatever was happening in him or between them, that would not change. Maybe it was not everything he knew that was being uprooted right now, though it still felt like it.

Dorian took a step forward, trying to remain steady on his feet and reached out with one hand. He was surprised to see it shake. He came closer and laid it flat against Bull’s chest and was even more surprised to feel a tremor, slight but unmistakable, in that massive frame. Bull sighed quietly and covered Dorian’s hand with his own, almost completely hiding it, holding it tightly. Dorian felt their shaking abate somewhat in the warmth of the hold.

“But what, by Andraste’s assorted underwear and body parts, do we do now?”

“We do what you- what we want. And you haven’t actually told me what you want. Fair’s fair, Dorian.”

Dorian huffed and closed his eyes. “I want… to be with you without waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for it to end. I don’t even know. I like you, so much, Bull. More in fact than I ever thought possible. For anyone. I didn’t know…” He had to clear his throat several times before he could go on. “Those things you said. Is that really what you want from me? A relationship?”

“If that is what you call a romantic relationship, then yes. That. Though I don’t exactly have much experience. Qunari don’t do these things, as you know.”

“Hah. Well, neither do Tevinter Alti. Don’t expect me to know more about this than you. I thought I knew how this would go. But I clearly don’t.”

Dorian opened his eyes again and met Bull’s gaze. It was intense, the look of complete focus on him like that. Bull’s expression was hard to face in that moment, so full of warmth and certainty under his web of scars.

“No, Dorian, you really don’t. And neither do I. But I’d very much like to try, if you want.”

“I do, Bull. I really do. I-”

“Come here.”

Bull reached out with his free arm and Dorian just sagged into his embrace, held firm and close against Bull’s chest. He wrapped an arm around Bull’s middle as far as it would go and just held on tight.

“Kadan,” Bull whispered, voice husky and deep, and just like that, Dorian knew exactly what it meant. 

“I am here. Amatus,” he whispered back.

He could feel Bull’s broad grin against him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Now we just need to fight a dragon!”

“Wait, what?”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, I sure hope you like ‘ridiculously sappy’, because that’s all I’ve got for endings. Even the temporary ones. Because this is it and I am declaring this fic complete. I think they are in a spot now where they can stay for a while.
> 
> At least until they embark on their next adventures, so watch this space I guess. As they say in the Adoribull fandom: ‘As long as Dorian hasn’t set the curtains on fire, the fic ain’t done yet’. I’ll make a series and we’ll see what happens next. Because let me tell you, very few things here actually ever went as planned. :) 
> 
> Thank you all again for reading and for your amazingly kind and supportive response. It blows my mind and makes my heart feel all mushy how many people have liked this. I said it before and I’ll say it again:  
> You are all great and should feel great!
> 
> TLDR: tbc, <3 @all. ^^


End file.
